


Thirty Days of Sherlock

by OtakuElf



Series: Biological Clock [11]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 30 Days of Sherlock, Artists, BAMF John Watson, Balloons, Bars and Pubs, Childbirth, Cookery - Freeform, Cosmetics, Dating, Endearments, Gardens & Gardening, Gen, Giftgiving, Grocery Shopping, Homework, Influenza, Kidnapping, Librarians, M/M, Parentlock, Parlour games, Pining, Reichenbach Falls, Shoplifting, Work, disguises
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-15
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-08-15 04:44:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 25,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8043034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtakuElf/pseuds/OtakuElf
Summary: Thirty Days of Sherlock as inspired by AtlinMerrick.





	1. Day One:  Shopping

**Author's Note:**

> John Watson, co-parent of Siger, Rosalind, and Miranda with the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes, discovers an empty fridge.

John Watson, on his way to prepare a risotto of last resort for his hungry children - all three clamoring for food as they swarmed about him in the kitchen - discovered that they were out of...well... everything edible. This had been a long and busy month, with three cases above a six, school and pre-school concerts, and Sherlock’s inevitable experiments. Not even a can of beans remained in the pantry to be warmed and placed on toast. Mrs Hudson was away on a cruise with Mrs. Turner. Bert was home visiting his family in Paris before the start of classes. Alice Brown had left half an hour ago, locking up the office good and tight.

Sherlock was out on his semi-weekly evening free of familial duties. John knew that his consulting detective would eventually end up at the mortuary, where Molly was working third shift. Until that point, there was no use trying to find the man. Either he was taking samples of pollutants from the Thames, chatting with the Homeless Network, or exploring London in disguise. And while his understanding of a balanced meal was better than it had been, it was still not up to Dr. John Watson’s standards.

Takeout, then. Which was all well and good. Siger wanted Thai, “Tom Yum, please!” Ross glimmered at him “Samosas!” Miranda, who hovered about like a hummingbird, but rarely shouted, pointed at the freezer and asked, “Ice lolly?” John looked again into the freezer, which was bereft even of ice, let alone lollies. He reset the ice-maker and moved the plastic bin back underneath it.

Takeout would not do much for tomorrow morning when John would be sweetly encouraging his and Sherlock’s children, and his mad spouse, to eat a healthy breakfast before school. “Right,” he said, “We’re off to the shops.”

Shopping with preschoolers is only slightly less terrifying than attempting it with toddlers. Granted, Siger was in school, and old enough to help keep an eye on his sisters. The red-haired boy had inherited his father’s ability to become absorbed in things that others did not see. John had mostly cured him of shouting out the secrets of everyone around them. What Siger found fascinating was usually not the most frightening of darknesses, but was often humiliating to the subject.

Now that John had spoken to him about loud public pronouncements, his son was given to “whispers” that were just below a loud and tactless announcement. “Daddy,” Siger’s treble came from between John’s arms, where he was assisting his father with the trolley.

“Yes, sweet?” Imprisoning the twins in the trolley with the food was preferable to chasing after them to prevent investigation into items found under the shelving, or left behind by other shoppers. Currently they were reading stories on their tablet, a gift from Uncle Mycroft, surrounded by boxes of cereal, loaves of bread, and cartons of fruit. 

“That boy is stealing,” Siger pointed at a young, unkempt child in a dirty, if expensive and fashionable, hoodie.

John could see that the boy had indeed been stuffing packets of biscuits under the hem of his hoodie. The contour of the packets under the green cloth was fairly obvious. He did not get to respond, as an short, round woman in a well-coordinated suit heard Siger’s loud whisper and took offense. 

“Tell your brat to shut up. Nosy Parker. Who asked you to stick your toffy nose in?” came in a shriek from the large mouth surrounded by generously applied lipstick. She’d moved between John with his trolley, and the shoplifting boy, a manicured hand furtively signalling to the child to get away. 

With the two girls in the trolley, not to mention the groceries, John hauled it and his children away from the woman with some difficulty, and went to find the store management at the front. Ross and Miri watched behind their father with eyes as big and round as saucers as the woman followed John down the aisle. “You coward. Running away from a woman, are you? You and your little bastards? You rich arse. You leave my kid alone!”

Knuckles clenched white over the push bar of the trolley, John tried not to walk too quickly for Siger. He muttered darkly, until he found what he was looking for. The woman’s hectoring continued until she saw the manager, a large competent woman, who was cheerful until she caught sight of John’s angry face. “Shoplifter, young boy, green hoodie. He’s heading out the door now. His accomplice is the woman shouting behind me.” 

Not everyone is incompetent, as the shop manager proved. Confronting the blustering female, the manager signaled a clerk at the door to stop the fleeing boy. A few minutes into the row a box of razors slipped down and out of the nasty (and that was the cleaned up version of John’s thoughts) woman’s trouser leg. The tumult drifted away, as John dragged the trolley and his children over to begin his regular battle with the chip and pin machine.

Rosalind and Miranda waited to hear if Daddy would supplement their vocabulary, but John kept his usually inventive mouth tight lipped. They went back to their tablet story, while Siger helped his father to pack their purchases into the cloth bags the twins had been sitting upon. 

“Daddy?” Siger asked when they left the shop, “Why were they stealing? The woman had money in her pocket. And her purse. It was evident. They were laughing about it in the aisle. And it wasn’t even for a case.”

John sighed, “I don’t know, Siger. I just don’t ever want you, or you,” he said to Miri, “or you,” to Ross, “to shoplift. It’s not something to be done for fun.”

“But,” Siger said thoughtfullly, “I like being able to steal from _Pere’s_ pocket. And yours. And Uncle Greg’s. I’m good at it, and it’s fun.”

This was a minefield. Stepping carefully, John told his children, “Your _Pere_ is teaching you a skill. Neither he, nor I expect you to use it to steal from shops, or people. It’s very wrong to do that. If you are hungry, with no money, there are places you can go that will help you."

Finding a nook out of the way of traffic John put the grocery sacks down, and gathered his children into his arms. “Do you your best to learn the skill, but be very careful of using it for the wrong reason.”

“Daddy?” and here John was expecting another deep and difficult question, not, “Can we go to Angelo’s for dinner?”

So Angelo’s it was. Dinner *and* dessert, for “It’s not every day that your son catches two lawbreakers!” John told his children. And Angelo even put their groceries into his refrigerator after hearing Siger’s description of their adventure. 

Later the children described it all to Sherlock, as he snuck into their room when he returned from his evening out. As parents are wont to do, as he understood it. Of course, John heard it all on the monitor from his seat downstairs at his desk, where he was writing up the latest case.

Siger asked, “ _Pere?_ what did Daddy mean by ‘every moment is a teachable moment’?”

“Daddy said that, did he?” came Sherlock’s amused baritone.

“Over and over, the whole time we were at the store and that awful woman with the gum disease was shouting at him. He didn’t swear or anything, just kept saying that over and over.” Siger said seriously, his red curls tumbled about his face.

“And we didn’t learn any new words from him,” Rosalind pouted from her top bunk.

“Or from the woman,” Miranda put in, surrounded in her small bed by a horde of plush animals. She knew the difference between ‘woman’ and ‘lady’. Her parents were particular about definitions. “She just used all the old words that we’ve already heard from Daddy.”

Over the monitor John heard his spouse snicker. Then, “What did you learn from the way that Daddy behaved tonight?”

Siger was thoughtful as he said, “That woman wanted Daddy to engage with her, so that her child could escape.”

“With his ill-gotten gains,” Ross put in.

Miranda squeaked, “She would have es...escalated the encounter.”

“And instead,” Sherlock prompted.

“Instead,” Siger answered, “He removed us from the situation. And reported to the proper authorities.”

“Because we’re kids,” pronounced Ross.

“I don’t think he was afraid of her, though,” Miranda’s voice was thoughtful now.

That brought a scoffing snort from Sherlock Holmes. “Your father, John Watson, afraid of a petty shoplifter? Not likely.”

John resolved to compromise, just a little, on his partner’s next request for an unsustainable experiment.


	2. Day Two: Gardening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who helps with the homework?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep wondering when they're going to show Sherlock's cottage in the tv show.

After digging up the third dead cat, John decided that it would be better to institute a different type of urban garden. “Pots,” he said to the three children, “We’re going to need large pots.” John Watson didn’t think that he could manage disinterring what was apparently a graveyard for local pets.

Sitting on the old wooden folding chair that Mrs. Hudson kept outside for “nice days”, John began a list of necessary purchases for Siger’s project on his mobile. Containers. Top soil. Something other than an old spoon to dig with.

He was accustomed to the sounds of London traffic, but an awareness came over him that the small area in back of 221, fenced in and secure as he’d thought it, was too quiet. Quiet could mean a variety of things. His madman could be sequestered in his Mind Palace. The children did not know how to do that yet, although Mycroft was teaching them the principles.

His children were not napping. They rarely did anymore. Indeed, Siger, Ross, and Miranda were no longer within the bounds of Mrs. Hudson’s tiny backyard.

Dr. John Watson was a man of action, and as he leapt from the chair, and dashed through the slatted door leading round the side of the house, past Mrs. Hudson’s bins, he had to swallow his heart back down from where it had jumped into his throat. It was with a desperate stumble to the side that he prevented the catastrophe of running over Siger, looking twig thin in his shorts and tee shirt, as the boy lugged a huge empty pail around the corner of the building. “Siger!” John started, “Where are your sisters?”

“Behind me, Dad. Look! Mr. Chatterjee gave us some pots for the garden!” Siger’s face shone with excitement under his halo of red curls. “Will we plant some medicinal herbs? Like for Mrs. Hudson’s soothers?”

“Oh,” John stopped, nonplussed. “Well, I think we might plant some chamomile, if you like. It’s not what Mrs. Hudson has in her soothers, but Mrs. Turner uses it as a sleep aide.” 

“That would be satisfactory!” his son chirped at him as he passed, heading for the backyard.

Miranda, usually the follower, appeared dragging a trough made of some type of dark, marbled plastic. The floral printed dress she’d insisted on wearing that morning was no longer neat looking, and had picked up an unidentifiable stain near the hem. “Daddy! Look!” she grinned as she hauled her prize along after her big brother. 

Ross, short for Rosalind, was behind, struggling to manhandle two pails each the size of the one that Siger had carried. John went to her rescue, though his little tomboy - who was deliberately dressed just like her big brother, though was not as willowy - refused to let him take both pails. “You can have one, Daddy!” Ross declared, “But I’m a big girl, and I can get the other one.”

With three large pails, a trough, and the wooden chair, there was very little room for all of the people in the tiny yard, as Mrs. Hudson was now standing on the back step beaming, and Sherlock Holmes was examining the interior of the first pot. “Yes, Siger,” he was saying, “We can use different types of earth for your experiment. I know just the man to contact about that. Rosalind, there are a number of plants that would accomplish changes in blood pressure. And there are vegetable dyes that can be used, Miranda.”

Oh. John put his pail down carefully to avoid squashing either of the twins. Siger hopped over the trough and ran to him, “Dad, do you have the assignment paper? I need to show _Pere_ the rubrics.” The boy ran off and left him, eager for a consult with his genetic father. 

Those two heads together, one with wild red curls, the other much darker, as the pair of them gabbled on about seeds and stock, about genetic variants, about loam and other varieties of earth. Other than the difference in pitch, the pair sounded much alike. Rosalind and Miranda were seated at their brother and father’s feet listening intently to their discussion. 

From the stoop Mrs. Hudson said, “Don’t worry, dear. They’ll come up for air eventually. I’ll get something cool for us all to drink.”

John turned a disgruntled face toward her retreating figure. “I have a list,” he said to the air at large. That had not sounded too plaintive, had it?

Pulling the creaking wooden chair around, he straddled it, and rested his chin on his arms across the back, striving not to be annoyed that his spouse had taken over the project that John had started with their son and daughters. He failed.

John Watson was, by and large, a patient man. He was very good at being active. He was not someone who could sit out and wait for others to do a job of work. Finally clearing his throat loudly, he announced, “I had thought we could go to the garden centre and speak to them about what would work best.”

“Nonsense,” Sherlock uttered in the most condemnatory of tones, “We can order it all online, and have them deliver it. Not worth the bother of traveling about and carrying dirt back in quantity. At least not that dirt. They’ll have it all bagged and treated from all of the same source.”

In an obviously patient tone, John pointed out, “Siger’s assignment is to set up a garden. He has the choice of doing it at home, or in the Community Gardens. Something edible is to come out of this garden. No poisons, or experiments with the food stuffs. He doesn’t need fifty three varieties of garden soil.”

His tone must have given him away, at least to Sherlock “I observe, John” Holmes, who lifted his head and focused upon his spouse. “Ah,” the tall genius said.

Siger looked over at his Dad and cocked his head in imitation of Sherlock. The twins turned and looked at their father, then back to their brother and other father, and then slowly, and a bit eerily, copied that cocking of the head precisely. 

John groaned and put his head down. “Alright. Order it online. From bloody Madagascar for all I care.”

“John,” his husband began very carefully but the blond doctor interrupted him without raising his head, “No, you know what? It’s fine. It’s more than fine. Just do what you think is best. What would I know about gardening?”

“But Dad?” Siger was asking, shocked, “Aren’t you going to help?”

“Of course Dad will help,” Sherlock reassured his...no, their son. “We’ll all help, won’t we, John?”

“What did you have in mind?” John asked with a wary look at the quartet of them.

“You were going to have Siger ask the Garden Centre for information personally? There’s a man I know who might be a better primary resource. It would be helpful to have Miranda and Rosalind meet him as well. There is a cottage we can go to for the weekend.”

Which is how they all ended up on a train to the Sussex Downs. To choose soil. To select plants. To ask one of Sherlock’s experts about creating a garden. And to take their first vacation. Together.


	3. Day Three:  Gifts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John doesn't realize what he's received from his madman. Not to start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying out the 221B format.

It took John Watson an extended period of time to realize that Sherlock Holmes was giving him gifts. The items and services were sporadic, irregular. They were often unsigned, and when they were labeled, it was frequently something like, “John!” or “Look at this!” As though John did not have the wit to notice that the event or object was for him.

Truth be told, he usually did not. Who would expect a bit of carefully cleaned bone illustrating a medical discussion the pair of them had enjoyed in a cab on the way to the train station a month ago. Or Mrs. Hudson always seeming to show up with the right kind of biscuits after a very long day at the surgery. He’d had no idea that Sherlock had manipulated their landlady into baking them at that moment.

Or that Sherlock Holmes, who so frequently and ostentatiously forgot his own brother’s birthday always managed to quietly schedule Harry’s time with their children to occur on John’s sister’s birthday,or the celebration of Harry’s time dry, or at a moment when Clara was visiting - illustrating to Harry’s ex that her former partner was not irredeemable. 

Sherlock did all of these things with no thought of a reward other than John’s pleasure. John did catch on. And responded to his partner’s benefit.


	4. Day Four:  Kisses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kissing. Sentiment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kissing can mean so very many different things. Depending entirely on who is doing the kissing.

Sherlock Holmes remembered all of the first kisses. It was probable that he remembered every kiss he’d ever given or received, but a good many of them were in the delete file of his Memory Palace.

At one time he’d had them stored in order of importance. Most often revisited was John Watson in the small room at the top of the stairs, waiting for Sherlock to climb those steps to where he was waiting, wearing a blue cotton tee-shirt - that had been washed approximately 47 times by the amount of fade - and black cotton boxer shorts. The first of many important kisses. 

It had not been Sherlock’s first ever sexual kiss. Correct classifications. First of sexually satisfying kisses. First actually desired kiss. First kiss with John Watson. John’s quick intake of breath. The scent of a male body, freshly showered, and yet still scented of John Watson under the perfume from his body wash and shampoo. The warmth and softness of John’s greying blond hair sifting through Sherlock’s fingers as he leaned forward and down to press their lips together. The taste of mint from John’s nervous tooth brushing before making his declaration. Such a simple thing, a kiss.

Ancient kisses were still important, of course. The press of lips to Mummy’s powdered cheek. Her return embrace. A goodnight buss from Father. The press of lips into the crown of his head when his big brother Mycroft thought his toddler self was sleeping. Not so much of the moment anymore. Mrs. Hudson’s motherly endearments.

And now. Kisses that were no less important, but not close to the classification of John’s kisses. Baby bonks against his cheek from the infant Siger. From Rosalind. From Miranda. Each in their turn. An important step in their emotional development. Those had brought a light, shivery feeling, quite unlike any other osculation.

His own lips pressed into the soft, feathery hair of his infant children, newborn, or asleep, or awake, or cradled in his arms. Kisses to soothe pain, both the offsprings’ and his own. Joint kisses from family hugs, John on one side, Sherlock on the other, and Siger and the twins in between.

He’d experimented. Of course he had. Daniel and Emma when they were young had received familial kisses from their “Uncle Sherlock” generally when no one else was looking. It was not the same. He had tested Joy, Mycroft’s biological offspring, and Will, who was Lestrade’s, and verified the difference between kissing his own children, and those of others. Even those who were technically his own genetic progeny, as Daniel and Emma were. There was not the closeness, the tightness in his emotional centers. Not quite the same sentiment.

Sherlock was pleased that there was no need to kiss anyone else’s children. He was well aware of the unsanitary aspects involved in the practice.

And yet, the tight embrace, the quick kiss on his jaw from Emma when they’d “accidentally” met the well-known forensic paleontologist at the British Museum, and joined him for a quiet lunch out at Angelo’s. Her quiet whisper of “I know it was you who set this up, Uncle Sherlock! Mum would never have allowed it otherwise. Thank you!” There was a pleasure in giving. As there was a joy in receiving thanks.

Yes, those were classified and saved in the Mind Palace. Nearby the kisses Siger had given the wound when Sherlock had been slightly shot during a burglary. To clarify, Sherlock had not been burglarizing. Not that time. But Siger’s assistance of John’s bandaging had included a kiss on the neatly wrapped arm. Gratifying for some strange and inexplicable reason, in spite of his protestations to his doctor at the time that “kisses do not make things better, John.”

Only to have John prove him very, very wrong after Siger went to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I was little, our grandmother always greeted people with a kiss on the lips. It wasn't sexual, it was a dry little peck. A quick buss. But it was culturally the way she grew up greeting people who were family. Much the way that some families touch cheeks together when they meet.
> 
> I have heard people explode into disgust over this. While I don't have a huge hairy issue with it, it's not my way of greeting people. But then again, my immediate/nuclear family were not a hugging household, not a physically affectionate family either. So while (at the time, as a child) I felt uncomfortable with this greeting, I felt equally uncomfortable with most hugs as well.
> 
> She is long gone, I find that I miss everything about her. The kisses, the way she fixed grapefruit for a special breakfast, the way she dressed, her strong will, and the way she loved her family.


	5. Day Five:  Work

“Well, Siger,” the tone was cheery enough, but her truly awful teeth distracted the young Holmes from what she was saying. They weren’t ogre’s teeth, by any stretch of the imagination, but they had not been shown care in the woman’s forty odd years of life. “Have you thought much about our discussion last week? About your future?”

“I’m thirteen, Mrs. Jenkins,” Siger tried the cheerful tone that his Dad used with patients, “And due to start uni in the fall term. I’m not interested in waiting.”

“I’d just like to be certain that this path is the one that you do want to follow. You’re very young to be heading off by yourself. Granted you are very gifted, musically and academically, but it might be more beneficial for you socially to remain at this school for another two years.” She’d been on about this for the past year. When he’d first come to her with the application Siger had thought she’d have a heart attack. His dad had taught him exactly what measure to take in that event, so he was somewhat disappointed when she did not.

Siger leaned back in the heavy wooden chair to stretch his gangly legs. “What did my fathers say?”

Sourly, Mrs. Jenkins admitted with what was almost a caricature of grudging, “They support you in your decision.”

And that was the problem, so far as the guidance counselor had told Siger. Oh she’d not said it with words. It was all the non-verbal cues. “Thank you for your concern, Mrs. Jenkins,” Siger leaned forward disarmingly, his eyes wide and honest, “but I do have support at home, and if uni is too much for me, I’ll have options.”

When the tall, thin boy climbed the seventeen steps to 221B, he could tell that his fathers were home. Dad’s windcheater hung on the peg by the door, and _Pere_ was lying on the sofa, hands steepled in front of his face. “The girls aren’t home yet?” he threw toward the father he most resembled physically - on the chance that he was not yet immersed in his Mind Palace. No answer came, and so Siger dropped his gear on the kitchen table and went off to find his dad.

John Watson was scrubbing the bathtub, surrounded by the nose searing smell of chlorine bleach. “Hey, Dad,” Siger notified his father of his presence. The household knew better than to surprise John Watson.

“Back already?” John looked up at his oldest child. Even when John was standing, Siger was taller now. “Everything alright?”

“Mrs. Jenkins doesn’t want me to attend uni at 14 years of age.”

John grimaced, and Siger didn’t think it was the bleach. “Mrs. Jenkins should mind her own bloody business,” John said with determination as he attacked a discoloration in the white enamel, “if she can’t listen to what you’ve told her over and over again.”

Siger’s grunt was noncommittal. Leaning against the door he asked, “What did you want to do when you were my age?”

“Win the World Cup, I think,” John grinned as he said, “Get through school without disgracing myself. And date the prettiest girls in my class.”

“Just date?” asked Siger curiously.

“At thirteen? Yeah,” John admitted, “I did not aspire to higher at that point. You feeling daunted?”

Siger shook his head, the red curls were flyaway from the humid weather. “No. Just picking up further data.”

His father laughed, “Your first word!”

That brought a smile. Siger was familiar with the story of that time in their lives. “What was your first word, Dad?” the boy asked.

“Mine was ‘Uh oh!’” the still mostly blond man gave up on the spot and sat back on his heels. “I got into things.”

Siger hummed before asking, “What was Auntie Harry’s?”

“I believe your Auntie Harry’s was ‘bah’! She had a stuffed lamb that she was fond of.” John hadn’t thought of that in years.

“When did you know that you wanted to be a doctor?” Siger could not believe he’d never asked his father before.

John peeled off the nitrile gloves he was using, and began to put the cleaning items neatly into the cabinet below the vanity. “It wasn’t a sudden thing like Albert’s decision.” Albert Tran had taken care of the children for years, but was now set up in a surgery practicing obstetrics. He had told Siger and the twins about delivering a baby in a lift, triggering his desire to become a doctor. John went on, “I just always liked taking care of people. I seemed to have a talent in that direction from the time I took first aid in scouts. It wasn’t until I got to uni that I decided to become a surgeon. And of course, I paid for schooling by joining the army.”

“Can we really afford for me to go to college?” Siger really did not want to join the army.

“Yes. I know your _Pere_ told you about the Trust Fund. You’re covered. Unless you want to waste your time partying and throwing away your gifts like some young people do,” John always left it unsaid that Sherlock Holmes had done so with an insane amount of drugs.

“The thing is, Siger, school is your work. You’re fortunate that you don’t have to find a job to pay for schooling. But you’ve always put your entire effort into your classes. Even if it wasn’t toward the goal your teachers set. That needs to continue. There’s so much for you to learn about life to make good music. So many prodigies burn out, and then have to climb up a mountain to get back to where they were to begin with.” John closed the cabinet and looked up at the boy who changed his life, much like Siger’s father had.

Siger squatted on the tiled floor, and smiled at his parent. “All of life is learning, Dad. You, and _Pere_ , and Uncle Mycroft, and Uncle Greg, Grammy Hudson, Alice Brown, and Albert have all been my teachers. Even before I went to school. I’m not afraid of hard work. I just know that this is an opportunity to expand my understanding. I can’t write a magnum opus if I don’t know about the world, can I?”

John Watson marveled at how tall his son had grown, how he’d matured. Smoothing those red curls from his boy’s forehead, he told his firstborn, “I am extremely proud of you, Siger. You don’t have to go to uni, or create a magnum opus for that. A kiss followed on the high brow.

“Yeah, Dad. I love you too,” and Siger leaned into his father’s caress.

“ _Voulez-vous me poser toutes ces questions en votre quete de donnees_?” Sherlock asked his son later. 

“ _Oui, Pere._ Siger laughed. “What are your answers?”

Sherlock said thoughtfully, “I do not recall my first words, as it was not something that Mummy or Father ever discussed with me. I am certain that your Uncle Mycroft will have the answers. He has my permission to answer your questions.” 

Siger hid a smile, not well enough, he knew, from his father. “I will ask Uncle Mycroft. What about,” he thought of how to phrase it, “What did you want to be when you were my age?”

“Thirteen is a difficult time.” then as Siger nodded encouragingly, an imitation of John that made Sherlock’s heart lift, “I did not know what I wanted to do at that age. I loved science. Music. I wanted to be learning, experimenting, doing things. And avoiding people.”

“I love those things too, _Pere_. Well, not the avoiding people. But I don’t want to be a consulting detective,” Siger told him earnestly, “You know I want to write music. But I need to learn to do it better. When I look at people I can hear their notes. When I read stories I want to put songs together to make them stronger.”

‘The difference between us is that I did not have friends, Siger. You do,” Sherlock added reluctantly. 

“You have friends, _Pere_ ,” Siger pointed out.

“Not then. There had only been Mycroft. And then he grew up without me, and went away. Much like you are doing. Oh, I’m not complaining, Siger. You will do well at whatever work you choose, and you will be splendid at it.” Sherlock had mastered the awkward pat in his thirteen years as a father.

Siger grabbed his father up in a bear hug, “I love you, _Pere_.”

“You know,” Sherlock told his boy, as he hugged back, “Before your father, there was only The Work. Before you. And Ross. And Miranda.”

“You told me that. After I was kidnapped. The first time. At least, it was the first time I remember,” Siger hugged even more tightly at the thought of his father alone.

“My point is that I thought that ‘alone’ kept me ‘safe’. Kept me focused. I was wrong in thinking that relationships would distract me. You, and your dad, and your sisters have provided me with an insight into human behavior that I would not have had otherwise. It’s enabled me to continue The Work.”

“Your ‘magnum opus’?” Siger teased into his father’s shoulder.

The tall, still thin man sighed heavily. “I expect,” he said, “that my Great Work will be studying bees, when I retire. But still, I regard you and your sisters as each being a wondrous accomplishment in your own rights.”

_“Merci, Pere”._

_“Vous êtes le bienvenu, mon cher fils!”_

 

 

 _Voulez-vous me poser toutes ces questions en votre quête de données_ = “Will you ask me all of those questions in your quest for data?”


	6. Day Six:  Hair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ah, the hair. 
> 
> Such an important and tactile part of any relationship.

Sherlock Holmes watched, unseen, as his partner and spouse examined his own image in the mirror. John ran his hand through hair that was now more grey than blond. Holmes knew that tarnished blond head, soft and scented of the herbal shampoo that he’d gifted to his husband for their anniversary. The tall, thin, younger man breathed into that softness at night, curled around his husband and listening to the steady regular breathing of the sleeping man.

The only hair he’d cared about before had been his own. 

Inaccurate. Untruthful. Mummy’s hair had been so lovely. Not soft like John’s, but heavy and black and hanging like a handful of shining silk. Sherlock had been permitted to watch Mummy’s maid brushing and plaiting her hair before an event. His hands had itched to be able to hold the brush sliding down the dark waterfall, to hold and twist and braid it.

Father’s hair, short and vibrant red, had dictated every wardrobe choice. Sherlock had never seen his father slick those red locks back as so many other men of their acquaintance did. Father did his own hair. Short and sweet, brushed and done.

Mycroft had fussed with his hair, much like father’s, but kept longer and styled to within an inch of its life. At least while Mycroft was in school. Once his brother had come into his own at the office, the style had become expensively sensible. Then when he’d started to lose it - male pattern baldness - that had changed again. Mycroft no longer seemed to care about controlling what he could not, the loss of his hair along the front. No combovers for Mycroft.. Neat and tidy, severe, plain and never one hair out of place. Aside from the balding, not at all like Mummy’s father, whose hair often looked like an unmade bed, at least according to Mummy.

Joy’s children, Sherlock reflected, would inherit that genetic trait, the male pattern baldness. Joy’s little head was covered with dark red curls. They were sort of an inbetween of Sherlock’s darkness and wave, and that little bit of Mycroft’s color.

And now? Now Sherlock found himself tending to his own children’s mops. Siger’s was a halo of red curls. Or it had been for so long, until Siger demanded a trip to the barber. Rosalind’s brown tresses had been enjoyable to brush and braid. Until. Until Ross had declared that long hair got in the way. She’d talked Miranda into cutting it off with her father’s surgical shears.

The consulting detective did not know which had angered John more, the unauthorized use of his medical equipment, or the removal of Rosalind’s pigtails. Certainly he’d gone out and bought a new pair of shears. As everyone knew, once a pair of scissors is used for cutting the wrong substance, they never again cut it quite so well. That tainted pair was now in the sundries drawer, to be used for cutting twine and tape and odd bits of paper.

John Watson was not, of course, the type of man who dictated a woman’s hair style. There was no “a woman’s treasure” nonsense about John. Sherlock knew that the concern was more toward Rosalind’s hands, or Miri’s, on sharp edges. Well, that and whether or not Rosalind would be teased at school the next day. Not that it would have mattered to Ross if the other children did tease her over the cropped head. Ross carried those types of inconveniences off proudly. In some way that Sherlock could never fathom, no one bullied Rosalind.

Except, of course for Siger. And her cousins, Daniel and Emma. And that was not so much bullying, as ensuring that Rosalind’s head did not swell too much. 

Now the only one whose hair was longer than Sherlock’s was Miranda’s dark gold, wavy as a field of wheat. Sherlock was allowed to brush it nightly, if he was home. He plaited it up before bedtime to keep it from tangling over much. Miranda’s hair was the same color and texture of John’s. Sherlock treasured it for that, and for Miranda’s own sake.

“It’s all going grey, isn’t it?” John had caught sight of him in the mirror, and smiled ruefully. 

“It’s always had some grey, John,” Sherlock commented matter-of-factly before saying with a smile, “It suits you.”

John Watson had left his contemplation at the mirror, and reached up to brush a silver shot dark curl from his husband’s forehead. “Suits you too,” he told his consulting detective.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My understanding is that Benedict Cumberbatch has to wash his hair carefully to keep the dye in. He swims daily, and the chlorine from the pool is not kind to the dye. Otherwise, his hair is reddish.


	7. Day Seven:  Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Rosalind and Miranda ended up with their terms of endearment.

The young woman shouted in pain. Sound echoed in the small room, twilight lit. Dark, straight hair was pulled back from her sweating face, and she bared her teeth as the next contraction took hold. Manicured fingers clenched tight around the hands of the two men on either side, nails biting into the soft flesh over solid bone.

“Breathe, Jeanette,” the shorter, blond man, kitted out in surgical scrubs, told her, “You’re doing just fine.”

“Fascinating,” muttered the taller, dark haired man, who was dressed fashionably in a suit. His suit jacket draped over the ubiquitous oxygen tank, he wore a vibrant blue button down shirt, the sleeves rolled up in concession to the occasion. 

The blond gave him a long-suffering glance. There were a resident doctor and midwife both obviously thrown by the comments leading up to this one, and they nervously reassured the woman on the delivery table from where they crouched between her wide-spread legs and stirruped feet. Taking a much needed respiration, she looked up at the dark haired man and breathlessly asked, “What are you on about?”

“The marks from your nails are distinctive, and clearly not defensive marks. I believe I should take pictures for future reference,” Sherlock Holmes was happy to explain to Jeannine. 

Jeanette began a laugh, which broke off as the next contraction began. “Silly bugger,” she gasped, smiling up at the blond man on the other side. He smiled at his partner, fondly, before looking down at the surrogate and sharing a grin.

They’d been together, the three of them, at the Initiative under very similar circumstances. Jeanette had not given birth to Siger, their son, but she’d carried one of Sherlock’s many children - all part of a grand scheme by the long dead Jim Moriarty.

Now she was carrying twins. Or delivering them, really. John Watson’s children, fertilized in vitro. “Oh, this is hard work,” she gasped.

Hard work, but over relatively quickly, as the infant girls were both born within the next twenty minutes. Not very different from the delivery of all those babies at the Initiative, Sherlock mused, except for one thing. These were John Watson’s blood and bone. To Sherlock they were as precious as Siger had been.

The next morning after a visit by Gregory Lestrade and Mycroft Holmes, who brought Siger with them, Siger Hamish Holmes leaned over in his _Pere’s_ hold to peer down at the two tiny creatures in the bassinet. “Bee,” he said, then “Baby. Two. Two babies.” His hands worked in the signs he’d been learning. The number two. The sign for babies.

“I suppose that we should have taught him the sign for ‘sisters’ while we were at it,” John Watson said from his place at Jeannine’s side, reading through her chart.

“Siger,” said the surrogate, “If you sit with me, you can hold one of the babies. Would you like that?”

“Yuss,” came out quickly, and Sherlock handed his two year old son down to the woman who had become a friend through the course of her pregnancies.

John was now checking a text on his mobile. “The two Marys and Jack will be flying over to see the babies next week,” he told the room at large. The three of them knew Mary Morstan and Dr. Jack Watson from the Initiative, and Mary Watson, their granddaughter, had donated the eggs for the in vitro.

“It will be nice to see Dr. Jack and Mary again,” said Jeanette. She’d never met Mary Watson, in spite of carrying her fertilized eggs to term. 

“Hmm,” came from Sherlock, whether in agreement or not, it was uncertain. He was watching Siger.

Siger, long red curls framing his face as he looked down at the dark haired doll-like person in his arms, was examining her intently. Observing, as his father would say. Soaking up information like a sponge, as his daddy often stated.

John hung the chart back on its hook before leaning forward to brush a gentle finger along the red-faced infant’s rounded cheek. “Hello, Sweet,” he said softly.

His son looked up quickly, eyes wide in shock. “No! No sweet!” Siger said loudly. “Siger is sweet. Baby, not sweet.” His hands were attempting to sign around the armful of sister.

John chuckled, not so much at Siger’s distress, as at his being much like any other child. “Alright, Siger. If Rosalind is not going to be called ‘Sweet’, then what should we call her?”

“Wosawind,” came out, distorted by a two-year-old’s lisp.

“Yes, but what do we call Rosalind for short then? If not “Sweet’? Because that belongs to you, doesn’t it, Siger?” John said.

“Woss,” Siger truly did try the ‘ar’, but it was beyond him at the moment.

“Yes,” John encouraged, “Ross would be a good nickname, a short name, for Rosalind. But what,” and the man stopped. He was at a loss on how to convey the concept of an endearment.

“Daddy calls you ‘Sweet’ because he loves you, Siger,” Sherlock put in. “It is an endearment, a term of affection. A word to show he loves you. What word should he use for Rosalind?”

“Wuv,” Siger lisped. Then, looking down at his new baby sister he said softly to her, “Wosawind Wuv.”

Sherlock hoped that Siger’s verbal development would move along from the lisp because at this point he was finding it both adorable and deplorable. Ever the devil’s advocate he asked, “If Siger is ‘Sweet’, and Rosalind is ‘Love’, then what is Miranda to be?”

“Cat,” Siger announced, looking up in surprise at the grownup laughter around him.

“Cat?” John asked, “Siger Sweet, why cat?”

“Se iss,” Siger searched for a word, “Meowin’.”

Miranda was making a small mewling noise from her place in the bassinet. As Sherlock picked her up, cuddling her to his fine broadcloth shirtfront, he did have to admit it sounded much like a kitten mewing for her mother.

Placing Miranda on Siger’s other side in Jeanette’s arms, Sherlock stepped aside so that John could take a photo with his mobile. Looking over his partner’s shoulder, he could already see several pictures of their daughters with Jeanette. And then there were closeup shots of Siger, striving valiantly to hold his two sisters. His children. How very peculiar. 

Within moments Jeanette had the dynamic rearranged, and took the mobile from John’s hand to capture their first photograph together. Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, and their children. Siger Sweet, Miranda Cat, and Rosalind Love.


	8. Day Eight:  Cuddles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A threat from the past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soon the trope of the victim in the boot of the car will be gone. Everything is hatchbacks these days. Or SUVs.

Cuddles belonged to Jim Moriarty. Body and soul. If he had a soul. Cuddles was not given overmuch to religious reflection. Cuddles was not given to much thought at all. Why bother, when he had others to do his thinking for him? At six foot five, with a shaven scalp highlighting white scars against the sunburn red of his skin, Cuddles was not a man to have the ladies tip him a wink. Most people would not meet his eyes. He liked it that way. 

Being friendly with folk tended to introduce complications into his chosen career. He was a butcher. A very specific type of butcher. Jim Moriarty’s butcher. As such he was used to his subjects being brought to him. Jim Moriarty was good that way. And it was difficult to move through an area without being noticed when one is large and distinctive. Distinctive was a word that Jim Moriarty had used for Cuddles. Cuddles approved of the term.

Jim Moriarty had shown his respect in bringing Cuddles out of the gangs and into position as a weapon for Sebastian Moran. “You’re a big boy, Cuddles,” Jim Moriarty had said on more than one occasion, “and just the implement I need.”

Cuddles never got his orders directly from Jim Moriarty. Of course not. But Tiger Moran was not in charge. Like Cuddles, Moran did what Jim Moriarty said. Tiger never lied, or prettied things up for the man. “Kill him. Make it messy. We want it particularly messy.” Or, “We’re sending a message with this one. So make sure anyone who sees her understands.”

And Cuddles would use the knife to take off precious tiny bits at a surgical slice. The cleaver to break bones. The drill to make insertions. Taking his time, of course, ‘cause “all good things take the proper amount of time” as Jim Moriarty used to say. Cuddles liked to use the knife. It got his blood running, as he had told Jim Moriarty. That was when Jim Moriarty started calling him “Cuddles”.

No one else did. That was for his master alone. Not even Tiger. And while Sebastian Moran gave him his marching orders, Cuddle’s master was Jim Moriarty.

Until he was gone. Those bastards had killed Jim Moriarty. Cuddles came back from a simple job in Dublin to find his master dead, and Sebastian Moran in an ice cold rage. Cuddles didn’t get angry much. Dead is dead. Revenge wouldn’t change that. But Moran glowed with frozen fury. “Jim’s dead. It stinks. All of it. So here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to go away for now. Wait them all out. Use the Northern account. Until you hear from me. And then you have another job.” Sebastian took a folder from his messenger bag and handed it to the man. “These four people? Their addresses are listed. Pictures too. You’ll know what they look like. You’ll receive a note from me, and then I want you to come back to London, and you take your time and track them down. I won’t be there to bring them to you. Don’t get caught you daft bastard, you’ll be on your own. At least not until after you rip each one of them apart. Then burn their hearts. They’re the reason Jim died.”

Cuddles nodded. Looking through the photographs he saw an old bird - should be easy enough, and three men. That was good. Cuddles didn’t like cutting up children. These four weren’t children. 

None of the men looked like they had any fight in them. One was that Inspector from New Scotland Yard. Police were tricky, but not impossible.

The other two were a pencil-nosed ginger gent, and a little blond bloke. Easy enough, Cuddles supposed. Giving Tiger Moran a nod, he packed his bags, the file with the pics in the outside pocket, and went to ground in the north.

He didn’t hear from Moran for five years. Which surprised him at the time, since all the news said that Tiger was three years dead. Dead men don’t send messages. Especially not inside a packet of his goods, forwarded from his old digs when they got demolished. Cuddles had gotten a job to supplement the funds in the account. Butchering beeves and hogs was not as fun as his work for Jim Moriarty, but it was a task he had some skill with.. Evenings were spent in the local library, keeping up on his real craft. The tatty cardboard box of clothes and bits and pieces held a sealed note reading, “Take care of those targets. Make it messy. Tiger.” No date. But then, Cuddles did not need a date. Just instructions.

London had not changed. Buildings might have, and shops. But the people were all the same. If fewer of Jim Moriarty’s old network were around, Cuddles could still find someone who would help for money. Or fear. First he found a mid-priced hotel. Jim Moriarty had always been specific. No one was to live on the streets. There were eyes under the bridges, and in the tunnels. Nosy eyes, that tattled to the wrong ears.

With the addresses supplied, it didn’t take Cuddles long to determine that the old bird and the blond bloke still lived at the same address. 221B Baker STreet. The DI was no longer at his lodgings, but Cuddles trailed him from NSY to the address he had for the skinny ginger. Pricey digs.

Common sense said to take out the two at Baker Street first. Easier targets - both the man and the woman would go out every day. Then go to ground and wait for the furor to die down before taking on the DI and the posh git. No bodyguard for any but the ginger, nor eyes on them that lived in the Baker Street house. At least not that Cuddles could see. The house was full of people though. A kid too. Cuddles didn’t want nothing to do with no kids. Not anymore.

He’d rented a freezer to keep things fresh while he waited. A space for his tools as well. Steel tables for the work. A small forge for charring the hearts. No one noticed him. 

He took the blond man, a doctor as he found out, from his surgery when the rest of the staff were out for lunch. The mobile phone was left where it was dropped. He might have stepped on it. Accidental like. The Doc was a handful. More of a scrapper than he’d expected. Cuddles could admire a man with a gift for language like the Doc had. Pure and simple, he was a genius with the vile words that Cuddles could hear from the boot of his car. He’d taped wrists and legs each together, but was enjoying listening to the flow. He didn’t get much conversation these days. Nobody could hear the Doc in the boot except for Cuddles, anyway. So no tape over the mouth. Cuddles sat a moment to work through the aches and pains from the solid blows he’d taken. Scrapper the Doc might be, but Cuddles knew a thing or two about fighting.

Right then. Back to Baker Street. He’d make sure the bird’s mouth was taped though. Cuddles didn’t like women wailing or weeping. 

John Watson was thankful for bloody Mycroft Holmes. He had to be thankful for something. It was difficult, taped up and locked in a boot. Again. And the giant bastard had broken John’s new mobile, he was sure of it. But John had distracted him with a kick to the knee, in order to reach the tracker Mycroft had given them. John kept it by the door, out of sight on top of the trolley. It looked like an odd bit of metal, so no one else ever picked it up. The nurses thought it was his lucky piece. Possibly something from his time in Afghanistan. He had it, activated and tucked into his shoe. So that was good. No bones broken, something else to be thankful for. Head was ringing, though.

John cursed loud and long in Pashto while he struggled to drag his taped wrists over his bum, then down enough to draw his legs through the gap. He got stuck half way, and his curses turned to English. venomous and real, before he got it moving again. Could have been worse, he could have had the tape around his arms and body together. Or higher up, immobilizing his upper arms. At least this way John could try biting through the binding. Or unpeeling it. Which was pretty damned tough. He worried at it, like a dog with a chew toy, ignoring the pain from his abraded knuckles.

The stuff pulled apart finally and John relished the drag as he painfully peeled the sticky, grey mass from his wrists. Nothing in the trunk. He confirmed with his hands what he’d seen when he was first dumped in. Now, where was the emergency latch?

Footsteps on grit. The Big Bastard was coming back. Whipping his hands back ‘round his body, and rolling to appear still compromised, the sticky tape crumpled in his fist, John began to shout “Help! Let me out of here!”

The lid to the boot unlocked and rose to admit a blinding amount of watery sunshine. “Here. I brought you some company,” Big Bastard told him as he dropped a limp Mrs. Hudson on top of John. The lid slammed and left them in darkness again.

The car started up, and John could feel the vehicle in motion. No movement from his companion, but she was breathing. There were sounds of traffic outside. “I don’t suppose you thought to bring your frying pan?” he asked the unconscious Mrs. Hudson as he checked her pulse. 

Bugger all. Now there were two hostages to fortune.

Perched on a stool, Sherlock Holmes was examining paint samples in the microscope in his lab when his mobile rang. “John!” he called, before realizing that his husband was late getting home from his half day at the surgery. The call was, therefore, probably John calling to ask Sherlock to pick up milk or beans some nonsense like that. He ignored the call.

Alice Brown appeared at the door, boringly normal in a baby blue twin set and pearls. “Sherlock,” she said in her hesitating fashion, her hand hanging on her Saint Jude medal, “Mr. Holmes is on the line. He says that John has been taken.”

“Taken?” Sherlock was unaware that he’d spoken that out loud. He was still looking at the microscope, but not seeing any of it.

“Kidnapped. His transponder went off ten minutes ago. Mr. Holmes’s men found the surgery empty, and signs of a struggle.” Even after a year or so, Alice Brown was not used to reporting horrible crimes to her employer. She was employed by a consultancy firm that specialized in crimes, yes. But she was still just an office manager. With a transponder of her own. “Just in case,” John had said to reassure her. It had not.

Sherlock held out his hand expectantly, but Alice Brown still refused to ferret out his mobile from the pocket of the lab coat John had bought him for his birthday. Sighing heavily he reached into his own pocket and checked to see Mycroft’s lack of address on the mobile screen.

Hitting the autodial, the call was barely answered before he snapped, “What?”

“John was abducted approximately ten minutes ago by a large man, 6’ 4 or 5”, twenty to twenty-one stone, bald and scarred. There is evidence that whoever he is, his records were removed from the system about five years ago. Technicians are working on retrieving his data. We believe the man has John in the boot of a black Vauxhall Belmont, as it and the driver showed up on CCTV driving past the surgery a number of times, then immediately after the abduction speeding off. No blood at the scene, but the remains of John’s mobile were found under his desk. The transponder went off during the kidnapping.” Mycroft’s report was succinct.

“Who was it?” Sherlock was not asking, he as muttering as he flipped through a variety of possibilities. Nothing came. Mycroft had resources for this sort of thing. Best to use them.

“Unknown at this time.” How tedious, Mycroft was repeating the obvious. “Have you irritated anyone lately, Sherlock?” An odd question. Sherlock, and therefore Mycroft as well, had come to accept that he’d irritated *someone* at almost any point in time.

Sherlock waved the hand that did not hold the mobile, “I’m classifying house paint specks, Mycroft. Unless you’ve got a fanatical rooms designer on the loose, then no.”

“I’ll let you know when I’ve found him.” Was Mycroft attempting to be reassuring? Sherlock hung up.

Informing Alice Brown that they were on lockdown, and that she was to start the recorder when she answered the phone from now until he told her not to, Sherlock swept out of the office and up the stairs to 221B. “Albert,” he shouted, only to stop short to prevent falling over the _au pair_ , who, with Siger, was on the floor with the periodic table blocks. “Albert,” he loathed repeating himself, but was caught in a slight vocal glitch, “You are not to go out, nor to let anyone into the house until further notice. Make certain that Siger is safe. John has been kidnapped. Do you have your transponder?”

“Mine and Siger’s,” Bert Tran responded. Catching them out of his pocket, he flicked them both on, and inserted Siger’s into a tiny pocket in the back of the toddler’s bright blue romper. Bert's own he stuck under the leg of his jeans, down the top of his plain black, cotton sock.

Thus reminded, the tall, dark haired consulting detective reluctantly activated his own, and tucked it in the cuff of his own bright blue shirt’s sleeve.

“Keep away from the windows, please,” he added before running back downstairs to find Alice Brown had bolted the doors, as they’d practiced, had started the cameras above the black front door and over Mrs. Hudson's back door, and was now setting the alarms. “Mrs. Hudson!” he shouted, giving the briefest moment of courtesy before opening the door to her flat and stepping inside. Really, John was having a bad effect on him. A moment’s hesitation was bad in an emergency situation.

The flat was empty of Mrs. Hudson. Her cloth shopping sacks were missing. Mrs. Hudson was at the shops. Flipping the bolt on her back door, turning the door light on - it was daytime now, but this might take some time - Sherlock spared a look out the back at the deserted, flagged back yard. Empty as well. Sherlock set to work checking her flat for listening devices, before moving to examine the rest of the house.

Mycroft Holmes tracked the black Belmont as it approached the derelict dock area. His staff were immediately behind in a plain, white van marked for emergency road service. For once he was grateful at the lack of imagination in many of the criminal class. Imagination tended to throw kinks into patterns. Though there were always kinks. Mrs. Hudson’s abduction had been just such a surprise, and they’d lost track of the Belmont on CCTV while she was being picked up. Then her transponder had flickered on and blinked in concert with John Watson’s right next to it on the GPS. 

John Watson was regretting that he’d no hidden weaponry. Not just like James Bond, a knife in his belt, or a machine gun in his shoe. He’d have felt more comfortable with his gun in his hand. Mrs. Hudson, carefully rolled behind him into the far back of the boot, was still unconscious, but breathing strongly, now that he’d removed the tape from her mouth. There were no signs of hemorrhage that John could detect. Still, she'd have one hell of a headache when she did wake up. With the vehicle slowing down, the former soldier, danger addict, frightened man, was crouched into the boot - there was only just enough space - and waiting. 

Cuddles did not expect the human missile launched at him when he opened the Belmont’s boot. Surprised, off balance, he fell backward onto the cracked blacktop, the back of his head connecting hard with the asphalt. He was being choked, a belt or something throttling him. Clever lad, this doctor.

Clever, but too small to be a problem for long. Cuddles rolled, and climbed athwart the smaller man, stripping the belt from the Doc’s hands and tossing it to the side as he cuffed the bloke up the side of the head. He noted with satisfaction that the blond haired head bounced against the remains of the car park base. Come to think of it, the doctor’s idea was a good one, and he stretched to reach the thrown belt with the idea of strangling him into unconsciousness. 

The Doc got a good knee up into his groin, but Cuddles was wearing a cup. He shrugged it off.

Shrieking tires, and Cuddles looked up to see a dingy white van screaming into the old car park. That was not any repair service, it was some sort of police agents. Kill the Doc or run? No time to decide when the smaller man bit down, cleaving flesh on his arm. Minutely distracted by the pain, he was overthrown and taken out by a hefty chunk of asphalt in the Doc’s hand.

John Watson shivered, for all that he was wrapped in an orange shock blanket. Mrs. Hudson had come ‘round, and was similarly wrapped, her head laid in John’s lap as they sat on the ground in the car park, waiting for the ambulance. A taxi pulled up, looking oddly out of place here in the almost deserted industrial area, and a tall, lanky figure stepped out, then hurried toward them. 

“You missed all of the excitement,” called John. Mrs. Hudson stirred, and made the effort to sit up slowly.

“Did I?” those odd, multicolored eyes flickered over him, over Mrs. Hudson, taking in their disheveled aspect, each minute detail. 

“Sherlock, what have you done now?” Mrs. Hudson put a hand up to try to straighten her hair.

There was a shrug. “I’m sure that I have no idea.” His family were safe, if not comfortable. He turned to examine the very large kidnapper. The big scarred man was cuffed, and currently having a contusion on his skull seen to by one of Mycroft’s people. There was a hemisphere of bleeding tooth marks on the massive wrist awaiting their turn for attention. Well done, John!

“Christopher Cox,” Sherlock pronounced. “One of Moran’s men. You’re supposed to be dead,” he told the bound thug.

“Nah,” Cuddles raised his head in spite of the attempt at medical care and looked up at the detective. He wasn’t disputing the death. He said it proudly, ‘I’m Jim Moriarty’s man.”

They stared at one another for a moment. Then with a nod, Sherlock turned back to care for his family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cuddles. Yes, there are lots of times when Sherlock cuddled his children. He would not call it that, he'd call it "responding to their emotional welfare". And even more for John, both giving and receiving.
> 
> But somehow this tale seemed more important to tell.
> 
> I love BAMF John Watson.


	9. Day Nine:  Flower Crowns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miranda Watson had never been in police custody before.

The Crown of Flowers was a thing of beauty. It was gold, and enamel, and coloured gemstones and clear faceted stones that broke the light into rainbows. The fascination was not just for the monetary worth, the sheer volume of precious metal and stones, but also for the craftsmanship of the crown. The Flower Crown was the most fascinating piece of jewelry that Miranda had ever seen, formed to look as though woven from living, breathing flowers. Technically it was not a crown, but a chaplet. The striking circlet of flowers rose to a triangular bit in the front, with a small flourish in the back to mark how the piece should be worn. The sketches filled her book, begun at the start of the show three months ago. She was not the only artist captivated.

Other students, male and female and some of which she was not certain, gathered to sketch and attempt to recreated the piece in pencils, crayon, pastels. One day Miranda had seen a designer from the West End. She’d given him his privacy, of course, all the while shrieking like the fangirl that she was inside her Mind Palace. And of course spying on his oil crayon work.

Miranda had seen women return time and again to see the piece. It was not difficult to tell why they were in the room, let alone the museum. After slowly grazing past the other pieces in the exhibit, those expensively high-heeled legs would swerve over to the glass topped pillar, and remain. Not that Miranda had any disdain for the spike heels. She’d learned their place, in disguise, in combat. They were also hobbling, and so she rarely, if ever, wore them. 

Then there were the other mainstays who traded off with her on days spent, sketching, thinking, occasionally standing and moving a folding chair or circling the piece to wonder at a bit previously hidden from view. The tall one was transitioning, and chose high-heels to rock back and forth as they stared until Miranda thought their eyes would dry out, then focus on the spiral bound sketch book to transfer all that they’d learned in their fanatical examination.

One was a man whom Miranda was convinced was a thief of some sort. She’d spoken to her Uncle about him, presented the Detective Inspector with a sketch torn out of her book. No go. Uncle Greg smiled. “That’s one of ours, Kitten.” Reassuring, she supposed.

One last always made Miranda think of a disguise. A quality one, to be sure. But still something was not quite right about the ash blonde hair, about the custom makeup that she wore, about her steady stillness as she focused intently upon the piece. After three months, though, one gets used to even the falsities. Though speaking of falsities, the breast reduction she’d obviously gone through was still making her sit stiff and hampering her finer movements.

Miranda would not have minded that one so much but for her habit of stepping on Miranda’s gear, or stepping back all wobbly, so that Miranda thought she might receive the brunt of the woman’s clumsy fall. Today there was a trip over Miranda’s duffle, though the girl had deliberately shoved it under the camp stool so as to be out of the way. Heaven forbid if the woman fell and injured herself, then took Miranda to court for negligence. Though not, as many might think, because she was afraid for herself. Miranda’s family had a tendency to be over protective.

Miranda was the last today. There had been more recently because the exhibition would be over soon. Miranda herself was trying to get the last bits of detail down, had thought of a way to implement the crown’s metalwork and design into a brocade she’d been thinking of for weeks. 

Stretching her arms toward the blank whiteness of the ceiling, Miranda shook her long, honey blonde plait over her shoulder and bent to crack the stiffness in her back before gathering up supplies for stowing into the duffle, an army green canvas bag that her Dad had supplied. “Keep your art supplies neat with this,” he’d told her when the bag appeared so many Christmases ago.

The larger of her two sketch pads met resistance, and refused to fit back into the space from which she’d drawn it. Miranda sank back onto the camp stool to repack it and discovered the wink of gold and blood red enamel. There was a mark from an uncapped marker sticking up from the bottom, and crumbs beneath it escaped from the wrappings of her morning bacon butty.

“Oliver,” Miranda looked over to the guard, a large, dark skinned, handsome man that she’d sketched on more than one occasion - though she wasn’t supposed to be drawing the security staff, she knew that. “Oliver, someone stuffed something into my duffle.”

Oliver’s walk over was calm, but his reach for the radio link was not. The duffle was confiscated, three other security guards, two of whom had been on friendly terms with Miranda before this, one that she didn’t know at all, arrived looking grim, and in no time at all Miranda was sitting in a plain white room on a hard plastic chair. The officer from the Met who elicited an account of Miranda’s entire day looked her with hard eyes and an equally grim mouth before removing her to the station.

Miranda had time to think now. They, of course, suspected her of plotting to steal the Crown of Flowers. And why not? Miranda could not figure why the piece was in her duffle. She didn’t know anybody who would be stealing something like that. Its worth was in the craftsmanship, not necessarily in the components. Certainly the components would not cover the cost of an elaborate theft plot.

As time ticked on her thoughts ranged to whom should she call for help. Not Daddy. Daddy would come bursting into the booking area with rage and a desire to protect her that would allow whoever was behind this to escape.

Not _Pere_. She loved him, but he would allow his affection for her to aim his razor sharp tongue to the police officers, possibly to Oliver as well, and that would get them all nowhere. “I wish I had his talent,” she thought for the first time. “Or Siger’s.”

Siger and Ross she dismissed out of hand. These policemen and women would take them no more seriously than they were taking her statement. Possibly they’d be arrested as well, as conspirators. As much as she respected the Yard, primarily for Uncle Greg’s sake, she had spent years hearing about their shortcomings from _Pere_. Her siblings had a tendency to act with immediacy. Miranda rather thought she would wait and find out what she could from the situation before moving. Or before calling Uncle Greg.

Uncle Greg. Would she get him in trouble? Would there be inferences of favoritism? Had the person who targeted her for this known that she was connected? Or did they think she was just an ordinary art student? Was this meant to cause problems for her uncle? Or for her father? Sherlock Holmes was a name to conjure with, if it came to that.

Now Miranda was thinking of how it would be done, the theft of the Crown of Flowers. What possible use could there be in framing Miranda for the theft. No one had been near the pedestal. Well, not near enough to touch the glass, which was wired with pressure sensitive devices. Miranda kept her knowledge of the security precautions to herself. It could only confuse matters if she started explaining.

“May I have a pencil and paper, please?” she asked when the ideas began to overwhelm her. No. Leaning back, she thought about one last person that she should not call before beginning to plan a long, swirling skirt in her mind. He did always have such lovely clothing, though never skirts. She needed a particular type of skirt to convey the sweeping and overwhelming character of the grand dame in a play her class was doing in the Little Theater.

At two hours and half past the door to the holding area opened and a silver-haired figure entered. “Well, Kitten,” the Detective Inspector grinned at her, “You’re the last person I expected to see here.”

“Uncle Greg,” she said, startled, “How did you know I was here?”

“Detective,” he told her, “Or so it says on my warrant card. Are you ready to go? I thought I’d bring you to my house for supper with Uncle Mycroft, Will, and Joy and me. I can drop you off home then afterward.”

Miranda said, “I haven’t figured out how to convince them I’m not part of a conspiracy to steal art.”

That got a laugh. She loved her uncle’s laugh, boyish and relaxed. “No need. You’re not under arrest. Though they’d like to keep your sketch books to use in the investigation. You’ll get the drawings back after the case is closed.”

“Oh! That would be lovely!” Miranda said, pleased. She’d never been the one to help with police work before. Siger had - well, he’d been kidnapped, and so had Ross, and they’d both gotten involved in all kinds of hijinks with Daddy and _Pere_ and without. But Miranda seemed to always be the one left behind. Even Will and Joy and Em and Danny had been to Forensics camp. Not the Miranda was interested in police work. It’s just that one does not like to be left out of the family business.

“And I’ll tell you, though you can’t share it as yet with anyone else,” Gregory Lestrade told her with a smile, “If your _pere_ guesses, just keep mum, okay? Because it’s an ongoing investigation, and we’re working to catch accomplices. But they caught one of the guards with the real crown. He swapped it after the expert came to re-authenticate the crown in the case.”

How exciting! “The piece is alright?” Miranda asked with anxiety. It was truly her favorite bit of jewelry, and she’d be disappointed if it got damaged. “Oh, not Oliver?” that would also be disappointing.

Uncle Greg nodded, “Not Oliver Frank, no. And yah. The crown is fine. One of your dated sketches proved that the guard had been in the room before. Where he was not supposed to be, and out of uniform. You’ve a good eye for faces and body language.”

That compliment was what made the night perfect, though dinner with her cousins and Uncle Mycroft without her parents or siblings was a treat. She was reminded, years later in Paris, of his remarks when she opened a parcel from home on her birthday. Inside, carefully cushioned, was a pasteboard box with a birthday card from Uncle Greg. Inside was the facsimile of the Crown of Flowers wrapped in golden tissue paper, resting on her recently released sketch books.


	10. Day Ten:  Balloons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The game is on!
> 
> Or the chase is. But in a hot-air balloon?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chasing someone in a hot-air balloon is not as easy as one might imagine.

The roar of the heater or blower or whatever they called the thing, spewing heated air up into the gigantic envelope stretched round above them - blocking out the blue grey sky, well that noise added to the whip of the wind and made it impossible to hear anyone speaking. John was uncertain whether he heard or imagined the creaking of the wicker basket, woven canes smooth under his clutching hand. His dominant left hand stretched out to tether the fine leather of Sherlock’s belt. The consulting detective was leaning perilously over the woven rim of the basket, those changeable eyes fixed on the curvature of the coloured panels of the hot air balloon. Calculations spewed forth from the familiar mouth to be lost into the winds swirling around them.

John had to shout to be heard by the balloon’s operator, a stick thin man with his hand on the blower. “Will we catch up to him?”

A vigorous nod from the shaggy, bearded balloonist - a former Marine according to Sherlock’s comment when he vaulted into the basket and commandeered the transport. John had only just managed to scramble up behind before they were off. Leaning from his station in the crowded basket, the man closed the distance to shout to John Watson, “He don’t know what he’s doing. We’ll get him quick enough.” He seemed awfully keen on the whole "chasing someone in a balloon" thing.

True. The criminal, a short, fat blackmailer-turned-murderer had panicked and taken the closest method of escape. It was a miracle that he’d gotten this far.

Below them John caught glimpses of panda cars trailing them. He didn’t know any of the police officers in this jurisdiction, not beyond their names and ranks. It would be a treat if they didn’t arrest him and his madman for endangering the public welfare after all of this.

“Relax, John,” he heard in a puff of warm air against his ear, “This is no madder than other things we’ve done.”

“Each time you say that,” John said, turning to face his partner, “it ups the bar on mad things we’ve done.” It was not exactly a grumble.

“He’s heading for a landing in that field, gentleman,” shouted the former Marine.

“Excellent,” Sherlock gloated, “We’ll get there long before the police.”


	11. Day Eleven:  Cooking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hmmm. What kind of cooking is Sherlock up to?

There are few more compelling odors than roasting meat. Cooking does more than kill parasites and bacteria. It caramelizes, makes fat and protein sweeter, their flavors stronger. It appeals to the body of omnivore and carnivore alike.

John Watson had been taking the odd locum shift at the surgery, and this one had been a long day – what with the regular doctors coming down with the flu and every regular at the clinic likewise. He’d scoured his hands and arms throughout the day, and his face before leaving the surgery, with antibacterial soap. So far as he knew he’d not been sneezed on in the underground, though that didn’t mean people had not breathed on him, spreading their infections. Exhausted, the short, blond, former army surgeon had stopped grumbling to himself when he noticed people moving away from him on the seats in the tube. In itself that space was a good thing considering contamination. But John Watson did not want to get the reputation for being a crazy person roaming the streets.

Letting himself in at the black painted front door of two hundred twenty one B, his first thought was that Mrs. Hudson must be having company. While Mrs. Hudson did tend toward baking, she could whip up excellent casseroles, and the smell that filled the front hallway was of a roast, a lovely piece of savory meat. John’s mind conjured up images of mushy peas and mash to go with it. His stomach growled.

As he hung his overcoat on the pegs by the door it occurred to the good Doctor that Mrs. Hudson’s door was closed. And that her mail still waited on the long table next to the staircase. Those were the obvious signs that their landlady was not home. Sherlock, surely, would have found more.

Which meant that the odor of roast meat was coming from their flat upstairs. Feeling a little less tired, John followed the scent, jogging up the seventeen steps to their landing, and into the open door of the flat. “Sherlock?” he called as he stepped into the kitchen. He need not have. Of course Sherlock was there, lab coat over his tee shirt and pajama bottoms, every which way curls separated by a pair of clear Plexiglas goggles perched atop his head as he peered into the eyepiece of his microscope. 

“What is that? What are you doing?” John asked as he peered into the oven at the lovely brown roast, tied with string and resting in an enamel roaster. There were no other foods simmering on the stove to accompany it. 

“Don’t drool, John,” his flatmate told him absently as he typed notes into his mobile one-handed, “It isn’t warranted.”

John turned to examine the tall, dark-haired nutter he lived with. “What is the experiment? You’re not trying to cause an epidemic are you?”

Those light colored eyes widened, and Sherlock pulled back from the microscope. There was silence while he processed the idea. “John,” he said finally, “What an interesting idea.”

“No!” Captain John Watson was certain in his voice of command, “There will be no biohazardous material in this flat.” On second thought, “No experiments with germs, Sherlock. None. Do you understand?” Because human and animal body parts could be consider a bio hazard certainly.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, John,” Sherlock snapped at him, “I am not looking for ways to transmit pathogens. If I were, I’d be at the labs in Saint Barts. Or I’d make Mycroft set me up in one of the government facilities.”

“Oh.” John was nonplussed. “Why are you cooking a roast then? Did someone hide a murder weapon inside one, and you’re determining the rate of blood deterioration? Was the roast a murder weapon used to bludgeon a victim?”

That got Sherlock’s attention. “Where on earth do you get these things, John? Neither of those would ever happen. You can’t bludgeon someone with a roast. It’s not solid enough for a bludgeon, although you might be able to suffocate someone.”

John laughed. “You could if it was a frozen leg of lamb,” he pointed out.

The expression that bloomed on Sherlock’s face was that of a child discovering a birthday present. Of course. John had just opened up an entire new field of research for the man.

Before Sherlock could take off in a manic spree of research into the value of meat-based murder, John brought him back to the point. “Why are you roasting… what is that? Beef? Pork?” It didn’t look like lamb or a chicken. It did smell very good.

“It’s part of a body from the mortuary,” Sherlock said absently, having lost interest in the conversation. “Molly made it up and gave me several.”

Gagging was a natural response. Of course it was. John was lucky he didn’t vomit into the sink. And that was not the flu. Also vulgarity. “Bloody fucking hell, Sherlock,” the doctor found himself shouting, “Why are you cooking a human roast?”

“This bothers you,” Sherlock stated the obvious. So that they were clear. 

“Yes, it bloody well does!” John thought about his response to the odor of cooking meat and felt nauseated.

“You found the aroma pleasant when you first entered the kitchen. Even tantalizing. The smell has not changed, but the provenance of the roast is upsetting you,” the consulting detective observed.

John also thought his blood pressure might be rising. “It’s a person. You’re roasting a person. Sherlock!”

That curl topped head cocked like a bird, “While you’ve had objections to my keeping ‘bits of corpses’ in the flat before, this is something on a more visceral level, isn’t it?”

John’s deep breath as a calming technique was not helping much. He was much less shouty when he finally agreed. “Yes. This bothers me, Sherlock.”

“It’s not something from Afghanistan. You treated burn wounds there. You must have. Explosions cause burns that must be abraded. You were exposed to this before.” His friend was watching him.

Dr. John Watson, veteran, blinked, and looked at it in the light of his partner’s observations. His heavy sigh released much of the tension in his highly affronted frame. “You have a point. Though flesh burning from a bomb doesn’t smell exactly like a roast, Sherlock. There’s the chemical flavor,” and how did he ever begin to explain the wrongness of describing the horrors of war in tasting terms, “to begin with. And burning is not the same as roasting.”

“Point taken. The murder victim was disposed of by roasting and then being distributed into a variety of skips around London. Possibly eaten by vermin, dogs, cats, and the homeless before the method of disposal was discovered and the rest of the body parts were tracked down, discovered, and impounded by NSY.” The clinical recitation was helping, actually.

Sherlock went on, “Hair was shaved and scattered in the community gardens as ‘rabbit deterrent’, and the bones were thrown into the Thames.”

“A bit extreme for body disposal, wouldn’t you say?” John found this interesting in spite of himself. “Why didn’t they just leave the corpse out in the countryside? In a quarry, or a skip somewhere other than London?”

“The murderer had time, but little in the way of transportation. It was important that the victim not be declared dead, as bank payments to the murderer would cease on his death. She, the murderer, was also very angry. “ Only Sherlock Holmes could make this sound bland and ordinary.

Another deep sigh, and more relaxing. “And you are experimenting with what, exactly?” John asked.

“I have been monitoring the intensity of the smell, and whether or not human meat would be obvious or even noticeable to those around the murderous chef,” Sherlock told him, “Though I had not expected quite the reaction from you. I should have, I suppose, as you are very driven by your appetites.”

“Thank you for that,” John made a face.

“Right,” and Sherlock Holmes stood and started to put his microscope slides away.

“What are you doing now,” John wondered, as Sherlock reached over and turned off the oven.

His Holmes turned to look piercingly at him. “I will dress. Then we will take a stroll around the park before looking for a restaurant for supper.”

“Indian?” John suggested with a mildly relieved grin.

“Yes. And as close to vegetarian as you like,” Sherlock smiled. “Just toss the three in the freezer into the bio hazard bins.”

With a wary look, John wanted to know, “What are you going to do with the fourth one? The roasted one?”

“That one we will bury in Mycroft’s flower bed. I want to monitor the decay rate,” Sherlock said off-handedly.

“We’re getting into Mycroft’s no doubt highly secured flower bed how?” Johns question was both pointed and sarcastic.

“I called him, and asked if we could come for dinner this weekend. He is dying of curiosity about my sudden call. He’s making a roast,” Sherlock threw off as he flounced back to the bedroom to get dressed.


	12. Day Twelve:  AU (Alternate Universe)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The AU I chose was my own world. That of the library.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because the world needs more Librarian Sherlock.

"Here is Livy’s “Lives of the Saints”, though I hardly think you’ll have time to finish reading this copy before your arraignment, as it’s due long before then. Since it’s an interlibrary loan, we won’t be able to renew it.”

As the man turned to leave, the reference librarian went on, “A religious defense is not likely to work in any case.” The posh baritone drawl from the tall, slender man could have been mistaken for a sneer by someone who did not know him. It was, in fact, keen disinterest instead.

“What my colleague means,” inserted the stocky blond with the air of command (his name tag read: J. Watson, Circulation Manager) as he leaned against the mahogany standing desk, “Is that we can offer no legal comment, suggestion, or advice whatsoever.”

The first man broke in with, “You may want to have a dermatologist check out that mole.” He then gave a “tsk” and a sigh, and said to the air, “so few keep on top of those things until it’s too late.”

The shorter man elbowed the taller in the ribs before turning back to the middle-aged patron, whose stringy grey hair indicated a dislike of modern practices of hygiene. “Right then. Let’s get that book taken care of for you,” and he nipped the book out of the reference librarian’s hands, marched over to the curving circulation desk, and ran it over the flat metal plate that desensitized security precautions in the books. 

The patron, his nondescript face, hair, and clothing likely to fade into the crowd but for the large, irregular black mole on his forehead, reached for the thick old tome with fingers crowned by nails bitten to the quick. “He,” the man began, and John thought that even his voice was non-descript, “How does he know?” There was desperation in his tone.

What would John say? After all of this time he could work his way through some of what his colleague pulled seemingly from thin air. John was used to being a translator at times. And having served as a surgeon in the army before being shot and sent home, John could actually give competent medical advice. The short blond man retained his license to practice, and worked at the Homeless Shelter in his free time. “Get that mole looked at, sir. Your book is due in three weeks.”


	13. Day Thirteen: Animal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Animal?

“Is it animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

“Animal,” the blond-haired doctor said with assurance.

“It’s the cow skull on the wall of the flat, John,” drawled the baritone of the string bean of a man from his seat next to the window.

John Watson had to admit it was what he had been thinking. “Alright,” he tried again, “Mineral!”

“Your laptop. Too easy, John,” came from the tall git with his legs stretched out under the seats in front of them. 

“How do you sit like that?” John asked as he shifted in the uncomfortable train seat. It had been a long ride, and they had hours to go until they arrived at their destination.

“Would you prefer that I sit with my knees bunched up to my chest?” his partner asked sarcastically. “Is it my turn yet for this inane game?”

“No,” John told him in irritation, “the last time you said ‘animal’ and it was botulism bacilla.”

“John, you should have gotten that one. It was part of the cases with Moriarty!” the consulting detective returned with asperity.

“Fine. Go on then,” John leaned back and closed his eyes to listen to whatever his partner came up with.

“Animal,” said the posh git smugly.

John grumped. “Is it bigger than a paramecium?”

“Yes.”

“Can I fit it in my mouth?” John asked hopelessly, ready with ‘bigger than a bread box?’ for next.

“I should hope so,” smirked his partner, “In fact, that would be quite enjoyable.”

“Sherlock Holmes!” John choked.

“Very good, John,” came the deep laughter, “You got one after all!”


	14. Day Fourteen:  Comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Without discomfort, there is no comfort.

It was the flu. John was a doctor, and he knew the flu when he saw it. Or felt it. In spite of his flu jab at the beginning of the season. The aches, the shivers, a hacking cough, bleary eyes, the fuzzy thinking. Both John and Ross had them. And possibly the rest of the family would come down with it soon enough. That would be awful. Sherlock really was a horrible patient. But for now John had quarantined themselves from the rest of the household, and taken Ross to the Pediatrician. A doctor should not diagnose a loved one. Unless it’s an emergency. And your tall, insane partner decides to race into danger and break a leg, or get hit by a bullet, or whatever it was this week.

They’d stopped at Sainsbury’s for Lemsip for John, infant syrup for Ross, honey, tea, and milk for those who did not have flu. John had sanitized his hands, and been careful that neither he nor Ross should breathe on, well, anything. Now he was hurrying back home with a plastic sack of groceries on one jumper clad arm, and one year old Ross - who was tired and flu-ey- on the other. John was tired. And flu-ridden.

A movers’ van pulled up beside them as they waited on the kerb for the light. John’s flu was completely to blame for his lack of clarity, his dulled sense that there was a danger. Dark clothed, balaclava covered figures were reaching for him then, and for his daughter. Milk sprayed across the asphalt from the split carton as John dropped the bag and chinned one of their assailants, knocking him backward into another of the dark figures. Ross’s squeak - as he swung her ‘round to put her on the ground - was muffled. “Run, Ross love, run,” John told her against all sense, because she couldn't even walk yet, before shifting back to face the assailants. Everything moved in slow motion as they grappled with him, and tossed his aching body into the back of the van. He came to a stop with his head bashed against the wire mesh of an equipment cage. A moment later Ross squeaked again as she was tossed on top of him.

“Ross, love, are you alright? Did they hurt you?” John asked, breathing heavily as he peered through the twilight darkness of the van’s cargo hold. He could just make out the nod of her small head, as he bundled her up into his arms. “Let’s let your _Pere_ know where we are, shall we?” he said.

Ross sniffled, on the edge of tears. “Bbbbbb,” she said reedily.

“Miri Cat will be alright. She’s home with your father. We’ll be alright. You’re here with me,” John reassured her as he used flu dulled senses to search for the small transponder sewn into the hem of the bright red snow jacket.

“Daddy?” Ross signed before she put her little arms around John’s waist and held on tight as she could. 

“Hold on, love,” John tried to remember where his chip was. It was hard to figure it out with his head aching like this. Shoe. It was in the heel of his shoe. He jammed the heel against the floor, banging and shouting, “Let us out of here!”

The moving van swerved ‘round a corner, and the doctor rolled to keep from falling on Ross. His stomach rolled a bit in the opposite direction, loudly announcing its decision to be queasy. Just what he needed now. It took some moving to brace himself, feet against one row of metal cages and back toward another set, and hold onto Ross as the van drove on. Ross was quiet, silent even, which wasn’t Rosalind at all. She was ordinarily such a chatterbox - for all that she was not speaking yet - John was torn between gratefulness that she wasn’t fussing, wasn’t crying, or panicking, and worry that something was wrong. Well, something other than that they’d been kidnapped. And for what? What was going on? There wasn’t even a case on, so far as Dr. John Watson was concerned. 

What did these men want? For they were men, not a woman in the bunch. If they’d planned on Ross, surely they’d have thought to have a woman to handle the baby. Unless they expected John to do it. Or hadn’t thought at all. What was it Sherlock said so very often? “The criminal classes these days,” before making that disgusted sound in the back of his throat.

“Ross,” John said quietly down into Rosalind’s hair, "Do you think that you can do one of _Pere’s_ plays? Can you pretend that you don’t hear? We can talk with our hands. Is that alright?” John thought that might be a saving grace if they thought she couldn’t be a witness. Not that Ross did much in the way of signing. 

Ross’s brown-braided head bounced in a nod of agreement, before she snuggled back into his arms. Relief blossomed in his aching body. He kissed the soft top of her pate, the fever radiating hot against his chapped lips. She must be feeling awful.

The van stopped, engine still running. John had given up trying to follow the turns and stops. He had no idea where in London they were. Traffic light, he guessed, as he did hear the sound of motors passing in front of them.

The van rocked suddenly as a loud bang, metal hitting onto the front area. Shouting, men’s tones, and then a voice called through the door, “Are you in there, Doctor Watson?”

“Yeah!,” John called back. “I’ve got my daughter with me.”

“They’ve put on a chain and a padlock. We’ll get you out after we get the bolt cutters. Just hold on.” A cheering sound ,all things considered, that voice on the other side of the door.

The edges of the bolt cutter must have been sharp, as there was practically no noise from them shearing through the padlock. The jangle of chain came through, and then the doors opened and the greyish light of evening flooded through.

Friendly hands reached to help them out. John asked, “Do you know what they wanted?”

“Not yet,” the dark skinned operative said grimly, “but we will. Don’t you worry. How’s the little lady?”

Ross had been peering into his face intently, and signed “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome,” he said back, moving his fingers quickly to say the same in sign.

One of the nondescript vans delivered them to 221B Baker Street, after a stop at a Tescos on the way home. Now that the adrenaline had ebbed, the achey part of John’s flu was catching up. Sherlock, who was one of the world’s worst patients, did not give kisses, but a light and one armed hug was tendered as he picked Ross from John’s arms. “Hot shower. Paracetamol. Pajamas. Then we’ll bundle you up in your chair for some hot soup from the Thai place, John. I’ll take care of Miss Rosalind. Then she’ll be joining you. And John. You probably gave your flu to your abductors.”

John had been nodding wearily, giggled at the last sentence. Sherlock went on, speaking directly to his daughter, ‘You’ll like that won’t you, Rosalind Love? You get to sleep with Daddy tonight! And drink medicine and hot tea, just like Daddy.”

Ross stared into her father’s face, her own scrunched up. John started to laugh. “I don’t think she knows the right words, Sherlock. It’s all right, Ross. We’re done playing. You can speak to _Pere_.”

An avalanche of baby babble tumbled out as Rosalind Margaret tried to tell her father everything that had happened, interspersed with questions about Siger and Miri Cat. At least according to Sherlock's translation. Were they okay? Was _pere_? Sherlock carried her off still speaking.

It was good to be home. Later there would be spicy broth (for John), and milder chicken soup (for Rosalind) - an interesting treatment for the flu, as Sherlock would say - and hot tea. Ross and John wrapped in an afghan, in his chair turned to face the telly, while Sherlock, Siger, and Miri shared the couch for a program on dvd. Family, and comfort food, and tea. His daughter safe, and snuggled against him in his chair. All would be right with the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to make some changes. My apologies.


	15. Day Fifteen:  Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is only one fall. The Fall.

For Sherlock, the fall was not the difficult part. It was somewhat enjoyable. Dropping off of the Barts roof had been an adventure, the excitement of the leap, the free-fall flight down onto the airbag, the race to get to the ground with the tennis ball secured in his armpit to successfully fool John. The retreat to his mind palace to help him still and cold when John came to identify the body. All of that would have been fun to have John in on, if he only was not so terrible at hiding emotion. John would have liked the plan too, if it had been John doing the saving. John would have done it all for Sherlock. It would have been freeing for them both, instead of just for Sherlock.

They could have laughed about it afterward. They should have laughed about it afterward.

Instead, Sherlock had gone off without his blogger. Dr. John Watson was left behind to pain and despair, and punching Mycroft. Alright, that might have been fun to witness. Instead Sherlock had flown off to Eastern Europe to start tracking down Moriarty’s lieutenants, his soldiers, and the remains of his web. Sherlock had chased Moran all over the world. It had been tedious. Not much fun after all. Without someone to share it all with. Without the illumination he’d come to expect from John.

Sherlock had lost what Moriarty had called “virginity” in killing, murdering really, those whom he could not set up for capture and imprisonment. And he was not picky about it, as John would have been. John Watson with his moral compass. Sherlock had killed them. Just as John had shot the murderous cabby, Sherlock had made sure those men and women who would have harmed John, and Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade would never hurt another soul ever again. Not that he cared about any soul other than those of John, Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade.

He did not have to come back to London. To John, and Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade. And Mycroft. To the Homeless Network. 

Sherlock could have roamed the world. Once Moriarty’s organization was stamped out, there were so many places to explore. But they were not London. And those places did not have John Watson. When he did return, his homecoming was not what he expected.

John did not like to think of about Sherlock’s death. Focus. Obsess. Dr. John Watson was not stupid, and he knew it.

Of course, compared to Sherlock Holmes, everyone was lacking - with the possible exception of Mycroft Holmes.

John had suffered. Nightmares, flashbacks. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a very real thing, and even though Mycroft was clever, he knew sod all about how it worked. Like concussion, like so many things, PTSD is cumulative. Once you have it, the damage is compounded by fresh scars introduced on top of it. John Watson was perfectly able to miss the excitement, the action, the purpose of serving in the army during a time of war, while being damaged by it as well.

Intermittent tremor notwithstanding, John had dreams of danger, fear, and death after the fall. Not just the battlefield now, nor the chlorine scent of the pool. His dreams were not of birds and flying. They were, to quote Monty Python with a Yorkshire accent, of a body that did “Not so much fly as plummet”.

Dropping, falling to the ground to land bloody and still in a bubble of silence while all around there were screams and shouting and movement. 

Sometimes the dreams were of the fall, and John’s shout of horror echoing in his own ears. Other times it was silence and staring down at the still body at his feet, fumbling to discover a pulse, a thread to connect his best friend, his partner, to life. Finding nothing.

It was natural that he should comfort Mrs. Hudson. It was expected that Baker Street would lose appeal, much as it was his home. Not such a surprise that he would put a good solid clip across Mycroft Holmes’s chin either, was it?

The thing is, Sherlock Holmes had taught John that he was a reflector of light. He illuminated bits and pieces of information to show the way for his genius friend. That light guttered after the fall, but it was not at its lowest. If nothing else, John Watson’s friendship with Holmes had given John his own new way of looking at himself. John no longer thought of that exit, the barrel of his gun and no more pain after the brief agonizing blast of the muzzle putting a bullet through his brain.

There was Mrs. Hudson to think about as well. And Lestrade. And the homeless or whomever it was that kept painting, “I believe in Sherlock” all over the walls of the halls of Justice. Maybe it was Anderson. Who was out of a job, as John understood. Because he had gone crazy, apparently.

John did not travel much to those places after the charges for assaulting the Chief Inspector were dropped. From time to time the independent investigatory team required is attendance while they slogged through case after case after case with Sherlock’s fingerprints on them.

The officers conducting the review were thorough, professional, and dispassionate. That was a facet that John appreciated. For Greg’s sake, as well as Sherlock’s.

The dating dry spell ended. John found himself bringing Sherlock along on every date anyway. The invisible consulting detective in his mind urged him not to just see, but to observe. Which caused Three Continents Watson to date a lot. A quantity of feminine consorts, and an enjoyable quantity of medicinal sex, but nothing, and no one, long term.

Until two years later, when his mad, dead partner came back to life in the most irritating way possible; with a horribly fake French accent and a penciled in mustache. It was to be expected, though, wasn’t it? That Sherlock would come back from the dead to wreck another of John’s dates?

It was that moment that John realized he’d been falling. When he landed. The solid impact of the feisty doctor’s left fist against that even more prominent cheekbone - evidence, though John did not know it, of deprivation and two years of Sherlock’s own version of the fall.


	16. Day Sixteen:  Hidden Talent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meeting John's army buddies.

Sherlock Holmes found John’s army “buddies” largely tedious. He was polite. Well, he was as polite as he needed to be without becoming effusive enough to tip John off. They were “enjoying a pint” at a pub as far away in London as one could get from Baker Street. Not that Sherlock didn’t know this pub. The denizens of the pub would not have recognized him, dressed in his aubergine button down and tailored trousers and jacket. He’d never brought John here.

John was dressed much like the others in this group. A fairly plain jumper over a plaid or patterned button-down and denims. Several had polos on under polar fleece open hoodies. None in anything that remotely looked like a uniform, and all with layered clothing. Was every man back from Afghanistan always cold?

“Here, darlin’,” a short - alright, about John’s height - dock worker waved the zaftig waitress over, “bring us a dish of maraschino (he pronounced it ‘mara-skee-no) cherries! Make sure they’ve got their stems, mind!”

“Why?” Sherlock thought he had only asked it internally, but apparently had actually opened his mouth and put the question forth.

That brought laughter. Even from John. But no explanation from the other beyond several winks. John snickered and told him “Wait and see.” Infuriating. 

Sitting in this darkened venue, the odor of sweat and stale lager and fried onions drifted past them each time the front door opened and pushed the air back into the main room. Ordinarily Sherlock enjoyed all aspects of such establishments; being able to dissect patrons, and practicing in character. Tonight John’s attention was focused on his comrades returned from Afghanistan. They’d already drunk to the departed. 

There was much twitting of John about his blog, and his “Three Continents” nickname - though not at the expense of Sherlock whom John had introduced as “my partner, Sherlock,” with his arm casually tucked about Sherlock’s tailored waist. They’d been surprised, but not threatened, nor vindictive. Somewhat unexpected, Sherlock thought. But then, these people clearly respected and liked John. And the detective inferred that they did not take him for granted. They were all clearly dangerous in their own rights. John was too. It would not do for Sherlock to underestimate them either.

In the white china bowl, the chemically induced redness of the preserved cocktail cherries gleamed in the lowered light. “Alright,” said the perfectly finely heightened dockworker, “Who wants to go first, eh?”

A tall, stork-like fishmonger reached an almost skeletal arm out to cries of “Jerry’s always starving, isn’t he?” and “That’s no surprise!” to pluck a cherry from the bowl. Biting off the fruit, chewing, and swallowing, the men didn’t lean forward to watch until “Jerry” popped the stem into his mouth as well. There were comments, and confusing predictions, and then - after an interminable amount of time, Jerry spat the stem out into his palm. The short, flexible cherry stem had been tied into a knot. By his tongue, Sherlock surmised. It must have been.

Each of the veterans took his turn at the task, some succeeding, some failing with the comments of “never to this day”. Or “I’ll never get it.” They all turned to John Watson. 

“Alright, Johnny. Should we time you?”

John laughed. “It’s been years. Not like I’ve kept in practice.” He grinned over at Sherlock with a sly smile. “Would you like to try?”

Sherlock picked a cherry fastidiously and pulled the fruit from the stem. Tossing the red globe to Jerry, he cocked an eyebrow to his partner. Laughing, John did the same, and the pair put the stems between their lips at the same moment. 

Sherlock focused on the feel of the bending, woody cherry stem in his mouth, and twisted it round with his tongue, bracing it against his teeth, and missing twice before sliding the end home through a loop. He spat the piece out into his palm at the same moment John spit his own out. A tie.

Laughing uproariously, the vets slapped both John and Sherlock on the back. “Lucky John!” and “Lucky Sherlock!” John laughed along with them, giving his partner a slow wink. The detective resolved to purchase an entire jar of those cherries. For them both to practice on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my old "clubbing days", tying your cherry stem in a knot meant you were getting "lucky". It isn't the easiest thing in the world to do.
> 
> And no, though I could do the whole tying thing, I did not pick anyone up. We went there to dance. And so we did. All night long.


	17. Day Seventeen:  Makeup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ah, the joys of fatherhood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Offense is not intended toward those who prefer to wear make-up.

It was a sunny day outside, if brisk, and he’d only gone out to pick up a litre or two of milk and some basics. Even the chip and pin machine had cooperated. No kidnappings. A successful shopping trip! All had changed when John Watson returned home. 

He opened the black wooden front door - brass knocker comfortably askew - arms laden with groceries, to find his son, Siger, sitting on the carpeted middle step leading up to their flat. Siger’s head, down on his knees, looked somewhat like a blooming red flower above his skinny trousered legs. “Are you,” John started before he heard the violin start in the rooms above. It was discordant. It was disturbing. “What’s up with _Père_?” he asked instead.

“Ross and Miri,” Siger said muffled before raising his head. “They came home from school wearing makeup.”

“Makeup?” John was startled, “They’re only seven. Why would they be wearing makeup? Where did they get it?”

“God knows,” Siger said in a tone that sounded suspiciously like his consulting detective father, and then at a meaning look from his doctor father, “Sorry, Daddy. I mean, I don’t know. I think it was some girls in their classes.”

“Give me a hand with these, would you please, Siger? Let’s go up and see what your father has to say,” John held out an arm’s worth of bags.

Upstairs the noise of the violin was louder. The horsehair strung bow screamed across the metal strings to make John grit his teeth. “Hallo,” he said loudly as he dropped his cargo on the kitchen table and entered the living space, “What’s all this, then?”

The sudden silence, of violin ‘music’ at least, was followed by, “You are not a policeman, John. It is ridiculous that you would think that is in any way, shape, or form amusing.” Sherlock Holmes did not continue playing his violin. Turning to two small figures seated on the couch, glaring at their father mutinously, he spoke, “Tell your father what you did today in school, Rosalind and Miranda.

“Evangelina gave us makeovers at school today,” Ross said loftily, lifting her button nose. “The teachers didn’t seem to mind. I don’t see why _Père_ is making such a fuss about it.”

Miranda ducked her golden braided head down, and said nothing.

Sherlock Holmes made a sound of disgust. Siger, being the good hearted and helpful brother he was suddenly spoke through the kitchen doorway, “I don’t think so. At least, you didn’t have that stuff on your face when we went in at the gate. Nor on the playground later. School has a rule about makeup, just like the one about gum, and toy weapons, and nobody’s supposed to even bring it onto the grounds.”

After a moment of thought their brother went on, “You were late meeting me at the gate though. To come home.”

Heaving a deep groan as he did so, Dr. John Watson got down on his knees before the sofa and said, ‘Alright, let’s see the damage.”

Ross’s lovely long eyelashes were heavily clotted with black mascara. Metallic pink eye-shadow had been applied with a heavy hand as well, and eye liner had been used to create an egyptian look to the top of the eyelid. Round dark pink pockets of rouge had been hastily rubbed in over what John recalled an ex-girlfriend calling “the apple” of her cheek. Though part of the redness there might be due to temper. Ross was markedly angry. The sweet, naturally pink lips were tight together, having been outlined in red, and filled in with something apparently called “fire engine”. Glancing down he observed that the short nails that Sherlock carefully cut and shaped for them weekly were covered with black, crackly nail varnish that looked appallingly lava like. 

Dr. John Watson was a brave man. Brave enough to live with Sherlock Holmes. A strong man. Strong enough not to burst out into laughter at the sight. Clearing his throat, he told his daughter, “Well. That’s an interesting effect, isn’t it. I think that I prefer your beautiful faces as they are though. As dismissive as I can be of the beautiful, I prefer your beauty.”

Sherlock Holmes, who had now replaced his violin and bow into their case, grumbled softly behind them in editorial response. Siger, who was an intelligent lad, volunteered, “I’ll go and put the groceries away, shall I?”

“Miri,” John said softly to the little girl sitting next to Rosalind. “May I see?”

Miri raised a tear ridden face, with streams of the heavy mascara running down her sweet unlined face, though the dark pink rouge. The only real difference from her sister was that Miri’s lovely, perfectly curving blonde eyebrows had been thinly penciled in to give her a startled look. John Watson bit the inside of his cheek and breathed through his nose for a few moments to calm himself down. 

Hysterical laughter would about do it, he thought. That and “What must those children’s mothers look like?” He hadn’t realized he’d said it out loud until he heard Sherlock give his bark of an angry laugh. More tears leaked out of Miri’s eyes and dribbled down over her cheek.

John also thought he heard Ross growl at him. He sat back on his heels and looked at the two miscreants on the couch. “Well,” he said in as controlled a voice as he was able,”This is what we’re going to do, yeah? First, I’d like for your father to take a photograph of your faces. Like we do for when he does his disguises. Okay?”

Ross looked startled at that, and Miri, hopeful. “And then what?” Ross asked.

“Then, we are going to see if we can get you cleaned up. Sometimes makeup doesn’t come off too easily,” John told them. He was not looking at Sherlock, and he was definitely not remembering past girlfriends. He added, “You do know that it is not the makeup that has your father upset, don’t you?” They were intelligent, his daughters. If they were not as organically smart as their big brother Siger, they were at least as enriched.

“Well, it’s not like we meant to lie,” Ross started. She didn’t get further than that before her tall, detective father was standing before her pointing a long accusatory finger down at her with a face like a thundercloud.

“I shouldn’t know why you would even try,” piped in Siger from the kitchen, “When you know that _Père_ will know anyway. I mean, why start now? And you didn’t even use what _”Père_ taught us on how to lie properly.”

“Thank you, Siger, for your very helpful encouragement. Consider it as volunteering to take the garbage down to the bins,” John called over his shoulder.

There was stomping at this, and high pitched growling, and banging of items around in the kitchen. Followed by a silence that grumbled as Siger took the garbage out. 

With a top heavy sigh, Miranda spoke sadly, her little voice a shade deeper tone than her sister’s, “ _Je suis désolé, mon Père, de t'avoir menti._ ”

Rosalind’s sigh was a soft, gurgling, unhappy sound, and she slipped over sideways until she leaned against her sister, head on Miri’s shoulder. “I am sorry, father, for lying.” It was an awful position for it, but she signed her words as well.

“Sherlock?” John said encouragingly, ignoring the heated glare from his partner.

“I accept both of your apologies for the lying. Know that I have objections to the makeup as well.” Then relenting he added slightly louder and with more inflection, “The lying was the most objectionable. You know when you are allowed to lie. This was not one of those times.”

John straightened his back, listening to it creak. “Will you please photograph their experiment, and then we’ll see to clearing it up.”

There was much made of attempting to get the sharpest and best picture before the curly-haired man was satisfied. It made this all seem more normal, somehow. Sitting down with John’s laptop, their father waved the children off to the bath for John to remove the makeup as best as he was able. 

Miranda reached up to take her Daddy’s hand. Squeezing it, she whispered to John, “ _Père_ is thinking again.”

Ross giggled in spite of herself, and reached up to take John’s other hand. “Daddy, Evangelina wears makeup every day,” she explained.

“I think it might be wise,” John hedged, “If you would discuss experiments with _Père_ or me before going through with them. Especially experiments of a social nature.”

Miranda nodded wisely, “ _Père_ is ‘pants’ at socialization,” she said.

Ross giggled again. “You sound like Uncle Greg,” she told Miri.

“Out of the mouths of babes,” muttered John as he swung his daughters into the the bathroom.

After the scrubbing was done, they emerged to find supper on the table, and a mysterious tall object in the sitting room, covered with a paisley, flat bed sheet. There was clamoring, “What’s that for?” but Sherlock did not give them anything beyond, “Observing.” Siger pretended to zip his mouth shut before he scootched his chair in at the kitchen table. 

It was a good meal, savory chicken stew with plenty of each person’s favorite vegetables - parsnips, turnips, potatoes, and carrots. When they finished eating and went to wash up, Sherlock told them, “Everyone into the sitting room, please. We will clear up later.” He had gotten better with ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ since the arrival of the children. “We are going to have a demonstration,” he announced.

Pulling the sheet from the object revealed a tall chair. It was not quite like a barber’s chair, and John had no idea where it had come from. Sherlock pulled a set of lights over to focus on the seat, and said, “I will need a volunteer.”

When both Miri and Ross jumped up and down wildly, offering, Sherlock gave them both a stern look and said, “You are to observe. Therefore you can not be the subject.”

Siger looked straight at his father and told him, “Don’t you mean ‘victim’?”

“Thank you for volunteering, Siger,” he was told.

John was beginning to gather what was going on. At the look of horror on Siger’s face - unusual, as Siger was usually the first to offer to be the dead body, or subject of an experiment - John raised his hand. “Alright. I’m your man.”

Sherlock gave him a delighted smile. “You would be perfect, John. There are all sorts of bits on your face that we can cover up and transform!”

“Yeah, thanks for that,” John groused exaggeratedly as he took the seat offered. 

His tall, thin partner pulled a box the size of a plumber’s kit from behind the sofa, and took from within it a light blue, knee length smock. “To be certain that I do not ruin my clothing,” he told the girls and boy. He shrugged into it, and of course it fit perfectly.

“Now,” he pulled a plastic shower cap from the box and fitted it over John’s blond hair up to the hairline. “Hold still, John.” The paisley sheet went to cover their Daddy from his neck down.

“This,” John Watson said, “feels ridiculous.” All that could be seen of him was his face and part of his neck.

Sherlock glared at him. “Get it all out now, John, because you won’t be able to speak while I’m working on you.”

“What if I have an itch on my nose?” John complained, shifting under the paisley sheet.

“I will scratch it for you,” his spouse said ominously, drawing a large palette knife from the box. “No, wait! Siger, get me a fork!” he said winking at the boy.

John crossed his eyes, making the children laugh, and then said, “All right, sugar pie, no more itching,” which made the children laugh even more, and Sherlock's face crumple in mock disgust at the endearment.

“Siger,” his _Père_ told him seriously, “Take the camera - it’s over there on the bookcase - and record this experiment step-by-step.

“ _Oui, Père,_ Siger hastened to do his father’s bidding.

Sherlock began, “Now, first we must decide what we are attempting to do with the disguise. Makeup is, by its nature, always an attempt to convey some meaning. It is a tool. Whether it is used to attract the opposite sex,” and here Ross, Miri, and Siger wrinkled their noses and made ‘ew’ sounds, “to copy someone else, or to distract a witness’s eyes from a noticeable blemish or identifiable mark.”

“What are you going to do with Daddy’s face?” Ross asked with interest.

“Why did you think putting on makeup with Evangeline would be a good idea? What made you want to wear it?” he asked her.

“It’s grown up,” she said.

Miri chimed in, “The other kids do it. Evangelina does. It makes her special.”

“How old are you?” Sherlock asked.

“ _Père_ , you know how old we are. You were there when we were born.” Ross sniffed.

“Seven,” Miri said over her.

“What is wrong with looking seven?” Sherlock asked her. He looked at his daughters with the intensity that told them it was important. To him at least

“Evangelina said we’d look prettier if we put on makeup,” Ross told him.

“I had planned,” Sherlock told her, “to make Daddy look more feminine. It will be a disguise.”

He paused for a moment, then went on, “Currently you, Miranda, and you, Rosalind, have precisely the faces you need, so far as personalities are concerned. You don’t need makeup to be Rosalind and Miranda. Nor does Siger for that matter, need anything else to make him be Siger.”

“Now, about being pretty. I would classify you three as beautiful. Physically you are beautiful children. You don’t need to draw attention to your best features, because you have fresh skin, long eyelashes, and lovely colour in your lips. Your hair is well cared for, and undamaged. You do not, at seven and nine, need to advertise your attractiveness to seek out a mate. That’s for when you are older. If you choose. Your father, though, is very masculine, and grown up, and we’re going to make him look like a girl.”

‘Now just a minute, Sherlock,” John said, though he had known this was the case.

“You can’t lie to me, John. You knew what I was proposing from the moment you saw the chair,” the makeup artiste said severely.

Turning back to the children he said, “Your father is very bad at lying, anyway. Remember that lying is a tool that we use much like picking pockets or opening locks. We do not use it against family members. Honesty, even if it is difficult, or leads to problems, is usually the best policy. Your father prefers not to hurt people’s feelings. But you will have noticed that he is very careful not to outright lie when responding to others. For this, as in all things, you need to observe, not just see.”

“Now, if we were really attempting to make Daddy look like a woman, we would first give him a very close shave. Stubble, or five-o'clock shadow, does not occur on the majority of women.” There were giggles in response. They were, after all, seven and nine years old. “Luckily your Daddy shaved late today, and is still relatively smooth.”

“When doing stage makeup, or changing your appearance, the beginning layer on your canvas is the base.” Pulling several jars from the box he compared the color through the glass with John’s skin. “Daddy is fair complexioned. I’m going to make his complexion even fairer. We could change that completely with makeup, but it’s difficult to do it well enough to fool everyone. And it can also be considered offensive to take on a skin tone that is not your own. A white man masquerading as an African could be offensive to people of colour. A woman with very dark skin in makeup that makes her look fair is also problematic. You realize,” he turned to give them a tutorial eye, “that my gendered examples are random.”

Siger, Ross, and Miri nodded solemnly. John gave a snort of laughter that turned into a yelp when Sherlock began to apply the liquid base. “It helps to warm the base up, as it can be quite cold. One can do that with your hands if you choose. Keep in mind that you’ll need nitrile gloves if you’re putting makeup on someone other than yourself.”

“Too late for that, isn’t it?” John nodded toward Sherlock’s bare hands, now marked with the fair base.

“Quiet, John,” and his partner showed them how to carefully apply the makeup and blend it into the hairline. “You need to make sure that it covers evenly, and doesn’t look caked on. Caked base can crack, and ruin the illusion. See, here? It’s not covering as well as the other areas, so we put a dab more, and blend it in. There are blending sticks you can use, but I’m just going to use my hands on your Dad. Quiet, John.”

John Watson bit his tongue, and only gave a little bit of a grin.

“How does that look? Even?” When assured that the base was covering effectively, Sherlock pointed out the flaws in John’s facial structure. “Truthfully, they are not flaws. If everyone looked exactly the same, what a boring world it would be. And criminals would be more difficult to differentiate. But your Dad has, in addition to the facial hair which is a secondary sexual characteristic, a thicker skull than a woman. Stop laughing John. I mean,” he clarified, “heavier skull and facial bone structure, especially here above the eyes.”

Miranda piped up, “Why doesn’t Siger?”

Ross seconded, “He doesn’t have facial hair. Or body hair. Or a bigger eyebrow ridge than me and Miri.”

Sherlock went to the rescue at Siger’s stricken look. “Siger has not gone through puberty yet. When he grows up, he will have body and facial hair, and a heavier skull. And a larger larynx. Males and females at nine and younger have predominantly the same skeletal structure. That is why we can not differentiate genders by skeletons of children who are prepubescent.”

John interrupted with, “The larynx is his voice box. Men have ‘adams apples’, and women do not have visible ones. Siger’s voice will be deeper as well.”

“Yes, that is true. You, Rosalind, and you, Miranda, will also have deeper voices, but probably not as deep as Siger’s. You’ll have rounder faces, longer upper arms, and some, but not as much, body hair.” Sherlock was beginning to look a bit startled at the direction the lesson was taking.

“Which is why,” John redirected, “Your father is going to show you how to make me look more feminine. Because I don’t. Look like a lady.”

“Yes,” Sherlock took hold of the rouge. “One way to contour the face is to use shading. I’m going to brush this darker rouge under your Daddy’s cheekbone here, then blend it in. If it stands out too much, that’s not good. You should never look like you have makeup on. It defeats the purpose. And as in many things, ‘less is more’.”

At the skeptical looks from his offspring the man clarified, “Basic makeup is to cover flaws. To make an older woman or man look younger. To cover a scar or a melanistic mark. To broaden a thin face, or thin a broad face. To gracefully curve eyebrows that might be straight and heavy. Notice how your father’s blond eyebrows are slightly darker than his hair?”

“They’re grey, aren’t they?” That was from Siger. 

“Daddy? Aren’t your eyebrows grey?” Ross put in.

“In any case,” Sherlock went on brushing rouge onto John’s cheeks, “Here I am putting a lighter colour on above the dark to emphasize the bone, and make the face look slender, less masculine.”

Taking up the darker rouge again, he said, “Now I’m putting some on the hinges of his jaws, and down here on his chin to make his face less square. Now, you can see it clearly because the light is shining on his face. But when we go out, with normal lighting, you will be able to observe that the makeup is less obvious. And here I’m going to make his nose thinner, and more socially appropriate.”

“Wait!” 

“What?” Sherlock asked, puzzled.

“Going out? I’m not going out in public with my face made up, Sherlock!” John said warningly.

“It’s an experiment, John,” Sherlock told him with exasperation, “We need to follow it through to the conclusion.”

“Sherlock, nobody looking at how I’m dressed, at my figure, is going to think that I’m any sort of a woman,” was the best that John Watson could come up with, “And I have a very masculine haircut.”

“I’ve got that covered,” he was told simply. “Really, John, please stop talking. You are making this take way too long.”

Sand-coloured eyebrows were raised menacingly. John Watson did not need to speak to be understood.

Blithely disregarding the communicative brows, Sherlock moved on to shading the bone structure around them. “You see? I can make it look less strong here by putting a little bit of darkness.”

The eyes were next. Sherlock chose a series of blues for the eye shadow. “Although you can decorate yourself with any color that does not fight with your skin shade, or your hair,” he added the last with a nod to Siger and his red curls, “blue is generally considered a blond colour for eye shadow. We’ll put the medium blue on the lid, the light blue on the upper eye beneath the brow, and the dark blue in the crease. Then blend.”

John did have to admit that the children were entranced. He did have nice, respectful children. They weren’t mocking him for his makeover. And if this is what it took to get them to understand that there were uses for makeup, but that mess that Evangelina had made was not one of them, then all to the good.

Eyeliner. That was an odd and disconcerting feeling. Sherlock had second thoughts about the false eyelashes when his spouse made a decidedly unhappy noise and bared strong teeth at him. Mascara. Even odder than the eyeliner. There. Then Sherlock messed about with his eyebrows a bit, and they were almost done.

“Now, your father has very thin lips,” the makeup artist lectured as he pulled a lipliner from the box. And while we wanted to highlight the blue of his eyes, we do not particularly want to make his mouth look damned awful and bloody obvious. Just shape it a little.” Which went to show what he thought of Evangelina’s lipstick job on his daughters.

“Language, _Père_ came in chorus from all three children.

“Yes, yes,” Sherlock waved that away before starting to outline John’s lips. “You three would not need colouring on your lips. You’ve got lovely colouring there already. I’m going to make your Daddy’s lips look just a little fuller, but we’ll pick a shade of lipstick that won’t scream for attention.”

By the end of it all, John was very curious to see how it worked out. The round mirror that Sherlock held up showed his face, but with makeup. Somehow that was a bit of a let-down. Especially considering the feeling of the makeup on his skin was distracting.

“Siger,” Sherlock instructed his son, “Show your sisters the photographs of their faces this afternoon.”

Siger complied. John watched his daughters looking at their own faces, compared the freshness and beauty to what little Evangelina had made of them. They examined their father’s makeup work on their Daddy. To John it felt as though he had paste encrusted on his face.

“Ew,” Ross commented.

“Not you, Daddy,” Miri giggled at his expression, before she asked, “ _Père_ , could you do that for us sometime? Show us how to put the makeup on correctly?”

The point was evidently made. All was forgiven. They had, in effect, made up.

“Yes. We can plan a series of experiments for you. For all three of you. And now, next, we will need to do your father’s hair, but before we can get to that, he’s going to need to go and change into the clothing I’ve set out on the bed. John,” Sherlock carefully removed the shower cap, then the sheet, “Don’t mess about.”

In their bedroom, each piece laid out out on the sage green duvet, was a complete outfit, trousers, a soft pastel shirt with feminine tailoring, a likewise tailored blazer, trouser socks, and sensible black flats. In John’s shoe size. It was with a heavy sigh that John started to carefully pull his jumper over his head without touching his face.

Looking in the tall mirror after dressing, John was surprised to find that the shirt and blazer made him look slightly busty, the trousers were cut to make his rear stand out, and his hips to look curved. Walking out into the sitting area, he found Sherlock giving the children a lesson on how to walk, first like a woman, and then like a man. When the tall git caught sight of John in his new outfit, there was a tiny smile quirking the corner of those bee stung lips. John shifted to throw out a hip and asked, “What’s next?”

Next was a wig, of course, not too long - only to the jawline - but decidedly a female cut. It was an auburn colour, which , Sherlock said, went with the fairer base. Sherlock continued his commentary with, “People see, but they do not observe.” The children had heard that many times before. “Your Daddy is, to our eyes, still a man. We know he is a man. But going out, we will notice that, if your Daddy walks correctly in those shoes, for this brief outing, he will appear to be female to the general populace. Now if he wanted to appear as a woman for a longer period of time, or to a more intensive audience, then he’d need more training in basic behaviors. And practice in modulating his voice.”

There followed a lesson for John on how to shorten his military stride, to stretch the muscles on his hips to get them to relax enough for an easy motion of the hips, and how to keep his shoulders back, his arms to the side. Miri and Ross and Siger all followed John following Sherlock about the flat walking like women, picking their way with more precisely placed steps.. Sherlock told John point blank, “I did not expect you would agree to wearing heels. So the flats will have to do.” It was late, but not quite the children’s bedtime before their _Père_ grudgingly said that their Daddy had passed the test. No time to work on John’s voice, he woudl just have to speak at a slightly higher pitch, and more softly.

The visit to the sweet shop was fairly short. Siger entered with Sherlock, since they were obviously related. John walked in with their daughters on his arms. Siger, Ross, and Miri were spending more time watching the other customers walk than they were on deciding which confections they wanted to take home. The girls, of course, addressed John as Mummy, mostly to giggle when he tried not to wince. 

“We are never going back to that shop, Sherlock. Not ever again.” John dropped his not particularly well done character in the cab on the ride home.

“Why ever not? John, they won’t recognize you. You’ll be dressed and acting as a man when you go back. They see hundreds of people in the course of their work week. One woman of an evening is not going to stick in their minds. It’s why I had you pay cash instead of using a card!” Sherlock told him triumphantly.

John pulled the red wig from his head. “Sherlock, the counter clerk was flirting with me. He asked me out for coffee.”

“I thought he might,” Sherlock admitted. “You’re clearly the type he favours. Fertile, as proved by the children, shy, and not the model type. And the distraction you and the children caused allowed me to glance through the order book behind the counter.”

John Watson dropped his head into his hands. 

“Don’t do that, Daddy,” Miri told him, “You’ll smear your makeup!”

Siger gave him a commiserating look. “It’s okay, Dad. I’ll help you get it all off when we get home.”

John looked over to where Sherlock was listening to Ross list the brand names and types of sweets in the shop they had just visited. Sherlock was watching John intently.

“That’s okay, Siger,” John told his son, “I think your _Père_ should take care of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a long one, huh? I would think I was finished, and more came out. So, hoping it's not too long for you all.


	18. Day Eighteen:  Holding Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because of course John will hold Sherlock's hands.

A bright shaft of light blinded John Watson. He knew how it must look. A man standing on a dark country lane holding a pasteboard box. Waiting right where he had been told to stand, for his partner who had obviously gotten delayed by some no doubt very important event.

“What do we have here?” came from a husky constable that John could just see beyond the light from the torch. 

Behind the constable moved another man, taller, who said, “Show us some identification, please.” John knew that look. And the warrant card being flashed. A detective sergeant giving him the grim onceover much as Detective sergeant Donovan would have. Did John have one of Greg’s warrant cards in his pocket? He prayed that Sherlock had not slipped him one this time, as it would cause trouble not just for John, but for Greg as well if the doctor were caught with a stolen police i.d.

“Er, yes,” John said as he tucked the pasteboard box under his right arm. He jiggled his wallet out of the back pocket - Sherlock had told him time and again that it was not secure there, “any common pickpocket could filch it” - and struggled to open it one handed.

“Why don’t I help you with that, Sir?” and the detective sergeant was taking the box. 

As the police constable was now shining the torch directly onto his identification, John noticed the sergeant pulling the lid from the box to take a look inside. “Really,” John was saying, “You don’t want to do look in there,” when the sergeant shouted and dropped the box, spilling severed hands across the dirt lane.

“They’re certainly well-trained,” thought John as he was taken down to the ground in a textbook fashion, listening to the, now, familiar caution. “I have the paperwork for those,” he told the dirt in front of his face.

The sergeant, who was speaking intently into his mobile said, “Suspect was loitering in the dark on Corn Street. He’s got a box of hands. No, sir. No. Human hands. Human hands. Well most of them, I think.”

John could see the constable in his peripheral vision as he handed the black leather wallet to the sergeant. “Watson. A Doctor John Watson,” the sergeant announced.

John could hear a loud buzzing from the other end of hte mobile conversation. Then the sergeant’s response. “Oh. Are you sure, sir? Short fellow. Yes, he looks like his ID. Older. No. No, he doesn’t have a weapon. No. No graffiti or vandalism in the area. We just heard him from down the road. No. Just standing in the dark.”

Leaning over the ziptied doctor to look into his eyes, the detective sergeant asked “Excuse me, sir. Are you waiting for anyone here?”

“Yes,” John grunted from his position face down in the dirt with his arms bound behind his back, “I’m waiting for Sherlock Holmes. I have paperwork for those lab specimens in my left coat pocket.”

The detective sergeant rolled the doctor to pull out the documents, examined them, then took the time to go back to his mobile before nodding to the constable to release their captive from his bonds. “Apologies, sir,” that worthy said as he cut the zip ties and helped John to his feet. “We’ve had some minor thefts, and a peeping tom in the neighborhood. Seeing the hands, well, it’s not something we’re used to around here.”

“Your captain knows Mr. Holmes?” John asked as he dusted down his jacket and pants.

The sergeant, who had rung off his mobile told him, “Mr. Holmes is down at the station house. He’s asked us to give you a lift, as he’s discovered who’s behind the thefts. And the voyeurism.”

It was not until much later that the doctor received an explanation. The Rainbird Guest House suite was comfortable, and after the noisy bite to eat at the station house, they’d checked in. 

Now Sherlock gave his description of a long and excessively convoluted series of events from the comfort of the quilt covered queen-sized bed - showered and clad in pajama bottoms and tee shirt, bare feet stretched out, and hands clasped over his chest - while John, wearing boxers and a tee shirt, tried to take notes from the table by the ruffle bedecked window. The apprehension of the phony fortune-teller and her set of identical triplets in the act of smuggling antiques would make for an entertaining entry in John’s blog. “Brilliant, as usual,” he told his partner before adding, “Why did I need to get the box of thirty seven severed hands, then?” The hands were residing in a cooler in the police station until the next morning.

The surprised look on the face of the consulting detective did not bode well for the answer. “Oh. Molly promised them to me. She had a connection with a local anthropologist. I thought it would be easier to meet on Corn Street rather than have you come all the way in to the town square. It might have tipped the fortune-teller off.”

The silence, and then John’s stormy expression caused the wheels to turn under Sherlock’s ebony coloured locks. “Thank you for picking them up,” his distinctive voice was careful as he said, “Though I am not surprised that the local law enforcement would make such a ridiculous error, I am sorry you ended up cuffed in the dirt, John.”

John Watson closed his laptop. It was not a slam, not quite. Digging in his duffle, he found tooth brush and powder and headed for the en suite loo. “I expect,” John told his lover pointedly, while waving the brush in Sherlock’s direction, “that you will make this whole awful evening up to me.” The blond-haired doctor closed the door to the loo behind him, giving his genius time to come up with a plan that would engender a somewhat better feeling.


	19. Day Nineteen: Date Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John are going out to a club. It's for a case, of course. But first...

“And your Daddy told me, ‘It's where two people who like each other go out and have fun.’” Sherlock told the small boy tucked into the bed.

“But isn’t that what you wanted to do, _Père_? Go out and capture the criminals?” Siger’s treble question contrasted with his father’s baritone.

Sherlock seated at the foot of his son’s bedstead, leaned against the painted plaster wall, long legs stretched across the small mattress. “That's what *I* said,” his father told him.

“What did Daddy say?” Siger asked, his well-worn plush violin hugged tightly in one arm, a fairly new plush Erythrocyte in the other.

“Oh, Siger. Back then, your Daddy and I were friends, not partners. Well, business partners, but not romantic ones. He was dating women. Quite a lot of women, actually. And I was not dating anyone,” Sherlock reminisced calmly, his long, slender hands lying relaxed on the blue book in his lap. “Never was interested in dating. Not like others do. Your Daddy said, ‘No, it wasn't. At least he hoped not.’”

Siger considered that for a moment, then asked, “Did Daddy hurt your feelings?”

“Sentiment,” his father said in less than his usual grumble.

“So,” Siger concluded, “Daddy did hurt your feelings.”

“At the time,” Sherlock Holmes told his son, “I did not know that I had feelings to hurt.”

Siger said decidedly, “I think that must have been very sad, _Père_. You and Daddy are happy most times.”

“Most times,” Sherlock admitted.

The solid sound of footsteps climbing the carpeted center of the wooden staircase caused the pair to stop and listen. There was the sound of Miranda and Rosalind’s soft sleeping breathing from the cribs against the other wall. The hint of traffic bled through the glass of the closed window. The comfortable form of John Watson appeared at the doorway. “All right, then?” he asked the pair quietly.

“Yes, Daddy,” Siger told him cheerfully.

“Ready for lights out?” John asked.

“Yes, Daddy. Where will you go on your date?” the boy wanted to know.

“ _Père_ and I are going to investigate a dance club,” his father told him.

“Is that what one wears to a dance club?” Siger gestured with his violin at John Watson, who was dressed in nice trousers, polished shoes, and a new looking button down shirt.

His _Père_ snorted before saying, “For the type of dance club that we will be looking into, your father is dressed perfectly ordinarily.”

“Thank you so very much, Sherlock,” said John dryly. 

“Some day,” Sherlock answered him, “You will allow me to dress you. Then we will go out to a very different type of dance club.”

Now it was John’s turn to snort. Then he came to the bedside, checking into the two cribs before bending low to give his son a kiss goodnight. “Sleep well, Siger sweet,” he said, “Do you want a night light?”

“No, thank you, Daddy,” Siger told him, “I shall be quite alright.”

“Well, Mrs. Hudson will hear if you call for her. Ready to go, Sherlock?” he asked as he straightened and made his way to the door.

“Yes. One moment, John,” Sherlock told him, “I’ll be right down.”

He and their son listened to John Watson make his way down the stairs to the sitting room. Sherlock was remembering his partner traveling to the flat for the first time with that psychosomatic limp. Siger was enjoying bedtime. He loved the time when his fathers read to him, or told him quiet stories by the glow of the night light, when Miri and Ross were both asleep. 

Tonight had been _Père_ reading about some children who had made a magic city out of books. Siger supposed that one day he might read that story to his sisters. And when Daddy and _Père_ came home from what Daddy called, “A Night Out”, and _Père_ named “A Date”, Siger looked forward to hearing about their new adventures.

Sherlock climbed off of the small bed, shelved the hardbound copy of E. Nesbit’s _The Magic City_ on the bookshelf, and went to give his son a kiss. “ _Bonne nuit, cher Siger._ ” 

_“Bonne nuit, Père. Amusez-vous bien à votre date._ , and Siger closed his eyes as his father closed off the light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will be taking a Christmas break from this, while posting a Baker Street Advent Calendar for 2016. Back with this after Christmas.


	20. Day Twenty:  Pining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This prompt was : pining.

Once again John was making Sherlock watch a bit of old British telly because he needed the cultural background to understand more about the world in which they lived. Foolishness. There was a petshop owner attempting to sell a parrot to a very slow witted man. And this was supposed to be humor? “Pining for the Fjords?” Soon enough no one would remember this ephemeral bit of trivia.

Sherlock Holmes knew pining well. He had two years away from home. Seven hundred and thirty seven days without John. Or his brother, or Mrs. Hudson, or Lestrade, or Molly Hooper.

He’d starved. Not physically. Oh, well, yes, that too. Done without food or the other needs of transport, no sleep, little in the way of medical attention. John didn’t remark on the scars. He’d his own, of course. But Sherlock knew that John Watson could read scars almost as well as the consulting detective. 

Sleep. Sherlock had entertained dreams while he was away.. Not nightmares of the horrific things he’d seen and done. Those came too, but these were dreams of living without John Watson by his side. Of never hearing John tell him he’d been brilliant, or extraordinary. Dreams of wandering about the Baker Street flat, empty of tea and jumpers and John’s laptop. Even more importantly, devoid of John Watson.

He’d come home to a changed John. A Doctor John Watson who had not believed in his return at first, and then when he’d realized what he was seeing had chinned Sherlock. There had been a job of work rebuilding their friendship. Renewing their partnership. Healing their relationship.

And did that not sound completely trite. True though.

Sherlock still had dreams of it. Of returning to Two Two One Bee to find himself alone. Pining. Wanting nothing more than to find his partner. 

Only now, when Sherlock woke up in his bed, aching with the memory of being alone, he was not alone . John was there. Sometimes one of the children as well. But John, that was who Sherlock was looking for in those dreams. John was something that Sherlock had not realized he was looking for. Home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am three days late on the Advent for this year. It's been a busy, tired, and sad weekend. But I thought I'd post this, in the meantime.


	21. Day Twenty one:  Bird Watching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock's away, and there's a mystery!

“Mr. Gurdy”, John Watson said in exasperation, “Ms. Brown has told you that Sherlock Holmes is not available, and I am telling you that he is not here. I’m sorry, but you will either have to come back another time next week, or speak to the Royal Humane Society or the police about your missing poultry.”

“You don’t understand, Dr. Watson. Those are not my geese at the farm. I don’t know where they came from, and I don’t know what happened to my geese, but those are not them. They. They ain’t my geese.” The old man had pulled his cloth cap from his head and was wringing it in his hands.

“I believe you,” John told the man.

Before he could reiterate what he’d told the man, that Sherlock simply was away on the continent, the man continued, “If they’re not mine, I can’t sell ‘em. It’s the season. It’s the time to make my money. I can’t sell what’s not mine. It’d be illegal, it would. Someone’s made off with my geese, and the police say they have no time for my foolishness. I’ve got geese on my land, even if they’re not mine, and finders’ keepers, or some such nonsense.”

“How many geese, sir,” came from the doorway, where Siger had joined us. He was usually upstairs at this time of day, this day of the week, reading. He didn’t get much time for that once his sisters got home from school after their soccer group. Bert was there, keeping an eye out. Even though he’d started with a surgery, he still babysat from time to time. John was grateful, and for the children the idea that Bert might not always be there was unthinkable.

John was meant to be searching for someone to take over Bert’s duties, but they just hadn’t seriously started looking. So Bert still had his room in the back of the office at Baker Street, and once in a while he babysat to make up for the rent he was not paying.

“Half a dozen, young man,” answered the goose owner, “and as nice and plump a flock of geese as you will ever see.”

Siger looked the man over, reading him the way Sherlock had taught him. “How do you know they’re not your geese?” he asked. It was probably what John should have asked first, but he hadn’t thought of it.

“They’re not pink. All six of my geese are pink from a prank the lads down at the Spade and Hoe played six months ago,” was the surprising answer.

“Pink,” John said in an astounded voice.

Siger threw him a look. “Not hot pink, Dad. The dye would have faded out almost completely by this time I should think,” he said.

This got a nod from the farmer. “Right you are, young man. Almost gone, it is. But still enough that I can see it. The geese I’ve been ‘gifted’ with are white as white can be. And they’re afraid of my old Gander, Alexander.”

It made Siger giggle, and he asked “Why did you name your gander Alexander?” 

That laughter always lifted John’s heart. He wondered if Sherlock had laughed as much when he was a child. Somehow, John did not think so. He was glad that Siger could.

The old man gave a sly smile, “He’s Alexander the great.”

“And did Alexander notify you when the geese were switched?” Siger asked.

“No. Most times he’s shouted the house down. He does that when company comes to call. But this time, and when they did the dying, he was quiet,,” Mr. Gurdy told them.

“Did you find any corn or feed that might have been used to entice your geese away, Mr. Gurdy?” Siger asked.

“Right you are, son. I brought some of it with,” and the farmer pulled a somewhat muddy plastic bag from his pocket.

John took the smeared bag gingerly, and peered at a quantity of brown, white, and grey-green.

“I had to pick it up from the yard,” explained the farmer, “and it got a bit of goose shit on it.”

Siger clipped the bag from his father’s slackening fingers. “What is the white bits of grit in there?”

“Grit,” said Mr. Gurdy, “for their gizzards. Made of ground oyster shell. Helps them to digest, it does.”

“And those bits that look like manufactured pellets?” Siger took a sniff at the packet.

Nodding his head, Mr. Gurdy told them, “Those are finishing feed. Good quality too.”

“Dad,” Siger said, holding the plastic bag up, “What do you smell?”

“Other than goose muck?” his father asked, then took a sniff. “Oh. That smells like curry. And something else.”

“Mr. Gurdy, you said that some of the boys pranked you a while back. Dyed the feathers pink? Do you know who did that?” Siger asked the farmer earnestly.

“Yeah, well, no . But I suspect it was the lads from the bicycling club in the town. They’ve been pestering me about locking Alexander up. He won’t let them bike across my land. Afraid of him, they are, for all that he’s a quarter their size. And them on their fancy bicycles!”

Siger snorted, and the old farmer smiled to have gotten the reaction. “Do any of them work at a restaurant? Indian? Or Thai?”

That got a reaction from Mr. Gurdy. “They do. Of course they do. Two of the boys work in their dad’s restaurant in the evenings. Indian Palace it’s called.”

Seeing his father’s cocked head, Siger explained, “They lured the geese with curried cauliflower. It must have been leftover.” Turning to Mr. Gurdy he asked, “Do geese eat cooked vegetables?”

“They love them. Especially Alexander - he does love cauliflower. Are you saying I should have a go at the lads from the bicycling club? That’s easy enough, I suppose. I didn’t like to just assume it was them without something to go on. Thank you, young man!” and after leaving his contact information, Siger escorted the older man down the stairs to the front door. “I’ll let you know what I find out, young - Siger was it? And thank you!”

John made Siger wash his hands extremely well afterward, as did the Doctor himself.

“He didn’t even need you, Sherlock. Took a look at the bag of goose shit and told the old man whom to talk to about his missing geese,” John told his husband as he set a mug of hot tea on the coffee table.

“Siger observed. That doesn’t always mean just using your eyes, John,” Sherlock said before sipping. He sighed in satisfaction, then asked, “And the farmer, Mr. Gurdy, called back later about it?”

“Yes. The two boys, Vivaan and Adi, twins by the way, admitted to swapping the geese in an effort to make amends. They thought that the pink geese might be harder for Mr. Gurdy to sell,” John sat down next to Sherlock on the couch. “Siger received a fifty-pound note from Mr. Gurdy in thanks for his assistance.”

“Good to keep it in the family, isn’t it?” Sherlock stretched a long arm over the back of the couch and onto his spouse’s shoulders.


End file.
